Being Single

Being a single woman in this world can often be seen as if there is something wrong with you. People have looked at me like my leg has fallen off when I say I am single.

There have been comments such as:

Why are you not married? Do you want to be?

Why are you not with anyone? You should be!

Do you have children yet? Do you want any?

A beautiful girl like you is single?

People your age are all getting married and having children.

What’s wrong with you?

At the time these comments made me smile, as I was able to see where they were coming from … beliefs and ideals we grow up with and then believe to be our own. Though in all honesty, I realised for most of my life I had chosen to believe that there was something wrong with me when I was single.

When I was not feeling myself, as in not feeling content and lovely just being with me, I would at times go into comparison or jealousy when I saw couples in the street, or feel sad when a relationship with a partner broke down.

I would allow and believe thoughts like; what is wrong with me, why doesn’t anybody want to be with me, it’s my fault, I’m to blame, if only this or that.

With the support of Universal Medicine and its amazing practitioners I am now able to step back from these thoughts and observe what’s really going on –

That these are not my thoughts!

So where had these thoughts come from that I chose to believe were mine? They had been fed to me since childhood, throughout my teenage years, and as I grew into a beautiful woman. They also came from pictures of how life is ‘meant’ to be; in society, magazines, media, films, books, television, movies and fairy tales.

But why did I choose to accept them?

Was it easier to need to be in a relationship and be with a man than to feel my own lack of self-worth?

Was it a need for security rather than to stand tall on my own?

Was it easier than accepting the powerful and amazing woman I am – and to live this – whether I am with someone or not?

The more I have allowed myself to feel and see, the more I have come to realise just how sneaky and undermining these thoughts, ideals, pictures and beliefs can be. From childhood we grow up with stories and fairy tales of princesses finding their prince and living happily ever after, of being rescued from the arms of evil by a knight in shining armour. Even when I saw a collection of Disney stories I thought maybe there’s just one… but by way of confirmation, every single story in the book had a beautiful girl being rescued or finding her perfect prince. All bar Aladdin, which was the other way around. But it is even more than this as it carries on throughout society, the media, films, TV (think Bridget Jones and Carrie Bradshaw), or on the front covers of magazines and newspapers featuring articles about relationships, on how to find the perfect partner, or how you should look to find one.

What message is this sending out to the world?

Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not.

Not only do all these pictures, ideals and beliefs put pressure on girls and women, they equally put pressure on boys and men.

So what was it about me that made me feel ‘that there was something wrong with me if I couldn’t find the perfect partner’? Why did I feel I needed to be with a man, why did I feel I was not enough?I realised what a huge impact these thoughts had played out in my life, and that they stemmed from a lack of self-worth.

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Living on the north east coast of Scotland by the sea. I like to keep things simple. You will often find me walking in nature, taking photographs, dancing or cooking an amazing meal, often both at the same time. I love truth, and I really love people.

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633 Comments

Simon Williams (@simonjcwilliams) says:October 6, 2015 at 2:35 pm

“to know the truth. And that is, the love I had been looking for all along is actually inside of me” It is passing strange that we should think any other way – the world and universe that we live in are so perfectly designed, why would we not assume that this perfect design brings us into the world with an essence that reflects the glory and divinity that is all around. It is only when we allow our heads to get all messed up with the thousands of years of false ideals and beliefs that we grow up with that it all becomes so wrong, the antithesis of that inner glory we all carry within us from the day we are born.

You have a very good point Simon, how could it be that we are the only things in the universe not made with the amazing perfection of all other things? How can we consider that we will find what we supposedly lack in someone else? Is it that in fact, we are already everything we need, and when we connect to that, we find the same in everyone else?

Humanity needs more reflections like you Rebecca and Gyl, to show them that there is another way, and it IS in fact true that the love inside of us can be re-ignited and lived so that there is never any NEED for another, and that we are able to feel the equality in that which allows for us all the feel the love in another also.

May I also add that there is nothing more alluring that a self-assured, beautiful, sexy woman, a woman who has ignited that spark of love within herself, who can resist?

Well said Rebecca, it is the fact that we have lost sight of the amazingness of ourselves that makes us look for it outside of ourselves and makes us willing to compromise to what is not love. It has helped me a lot to use the awesomeness I first recognised in others to start to see who I am.

So perfectly expressed Rebecca! How small do we make our understanding of the world and the universe when beliefs are inflicted on us? More and more I can feel how beliefs are constructed like a fortress to hide behind and when they are collectively held, they are then justified astrue and right! We are all so, so much more than this as you have so beautifully reminded us! Thank you.

Simon, I absolutely love how you say that: “It is passing strange that we should think any other way – the world and universe that we live in are so perfectly designed, why would we not assume that this perfect design brings us into the world with an essence that reflects the glory and divinity that is all around. It is only when we allow our heads to get all messed up with the thousands of years of false ideals and beliefs that we grow up with that it all becomes so wrong.” We are complete on our own, We are not each half of something, and need to find the other half.

It’s interesting that in all of our amazingness, we choose to find something ‘wrong’ by believing that we need another in order to be al’right’ and we don’t feel this, think that we simply haven’t found Mr or Mrs ‘right’ and keep searching. It is obviously a set up to keep us continually looking outward and never inward where our ultimate relationship begins – with ourselves.

True -keep us in the perpetual fantasy and search for something that will never be obtained for it is a false mirage and great distraction from committing to life and accepting the truth that is showing itself to us each moment.

Joel says:October 22, 2015 at 8:31 am

yes that ‘happily ever after tale’, messes with men and women alike, it makes people fit into an unrealistic box of the ideal man or woman and set up someone else as the saviour -eg: both are ‘completed’ by the other, rather than two complete wholes coming together.

This is a significant point you make Joel, how can we have intimate relationships with others if we are not prepared to have an intimate relationship with ourselves first. I am yet to experience a relationship with a partner like this but I know that this is the only relationship that I want to have in my life. A True, Honest and Honouring relationship that comes from having this with yourself first. Then sharing this with another, in this you can then have no expectations, wants or needs from your partner just allowing them to be who they are while enjoying the time together. Bring it on…

Gyl says:December 28, 2015 at 2:32 am

It’s true Joel, it keeps us looking outside ourselves for love, or maybe we set it up this way?

Sonja Ebbinghaus says:October 31, 2015 at 3:38 am

Even if you think you have found Mr. or Mrs. Right, the quality of connection to yourself is the quality of connection with your partner. And if you have no connection to yourself – you can feel lonely even in a relationship.

Yes the ideal or belief that there must be a Mr or Mrs right caps the fullness that life is in truth. Life is not about finding a perfect partner it is about something much bigger, our relationship with every one, how we live, the fullness of life, our divinity and the fact we are love and come from love and are returning to living that love in every part of our lives. Just making it about a partner is a great trick to not be aware of all that!

Love this Simon. We carry our inner glory and the grace of God with us everywhere we go…it is simply a matter of living with this fact and allowing ourselves to be all that we are. This is the love we have been longing for, a love that no knight in shining armour, no man, no woman or no child can give to us.

Yes exactly an no partner can give this to us, the love that we seek can only be connected to from within, then one reignited and lived we get to experience the glory of sharing this quality with another.

It is an interesting notion that we need not love ourselves and, can live how ever we like in utter recklessness towards ourselves and others and at the same time, expect if not demand that another fill the emptiness we have not only created but are not choosing to heal in ourselves and provide to us the love we deny ourselves – this is irresponsibility on a grand scale is it not?

This is true Sara, no one can give us the love we seek, neither can we demand it from another. Once we re-connect to the love within our inner heart then we have all the love that we will ever need, and more. It is only then that we can truly share this with love with others. This love is ‘All for One and One for All”…!

Oh yes Gyl, I was single for a long time as well and the comments I got were very similar to yours. Especially the one “A beautiful girl like you is single?” and then the following comment: ‘You will find someone soon’. It all indeed suggests that I was not enough as a single woman and that to be rewarded or confirmed in being a beautiful woman I would have to get a boyfriend soon. I love your question “But why did I choose to accept them?” this relates so much to me because I did feel flattered by these comments but actually if I would have felt my complete self-worth it wouldn’t have mattered so much. I am now in a relationship and I can say it is still the same, as in I still have to feel my own self-worth as no one can ever do that for you.

I know … this suggests that we are lacking something in being on our own and just being ourselves. No wonder, if we take this on, we can feel unworthy and less. However being and bringing all the Love that we are to ourselves and everyone else leaves us feeling very whole and full. It’s well recommended.

Well said Shevon. I know I’ve took this on for much of my life to confirm my lack of self-worth. But it’s not the truth and it’s wonderful to feel this isn’t the truth. Though I am working on the more subtle areas where this can creep in – like I’m missing out when it’s just me. But here again all I’m feeling is the lack of intimacy I allow with myself and the wonderful about this is it’s my choice, no-one can inhibit this connection I have with myself so I can never be a victim of circumstance.

Absolutely Karin – spot on. It is all a choice as to which energy lives us. An energy of Love that connects us to God and to our True source which forever nourishes us or or an alignment to all that is false, depletes us and never lasts.

Jane Keep says:October 9, 2015 at 5:47 pm

Well said Kylie and Shevon – the world around us sadly so often reflects that we arent enough unless we are … e.g.married, have children, have a ‘good job’, have a house etc etc etc… these are all markers outside of our selves … one day the world will see that we are already all that is needed – before we even begin to look at the temporal chattels and arrangements we are in.

This is so true, and it doesn’t seem to stop no matter what age you are. I have spoken to many people about these outside pressure and am yet to come across anyone who actually enjoys these passing comments. So why do we continue this kind of small talk?

Deborah says:October 20, 2015 at 9:51 pm

So true Abby and Jane. It is a conversation that begins early – children already believing they are not enough and seeking confirmation from the outside if not playing their way into one of many expected roles within society. We develop ourselves into one of many stereotypical pictures on offer.

Why continue to talk small when we are grand beyond measure and the True conversation is infinitely expansive?

Anna McCormack says:October 9, 2015 at 7:30 pm

This is such a great conversation. After spending most of my life in relationships, and now finding myself in a time when I am single, it has revealed so much about the lack of self worth I have been living and also how much I looked to my partner/s to fill this. I agree that it is easy to get caught up in the different pictures. Everywhere I go I see people in relationship really celebrated, I would go as far to say even envied. I know I have done this myself. Seeing ‘being in relationship’ as meaning you have made the grade, or you must be better or more worthy, it is crazy, but for me it has revealed my lack of connection to my own full worth and also the true meaning of love. So I am grateful for this time on my own and the opportunity to develop a stronger sense of myself.

There is a dichotomy going on inside me, on the one hand I have this yearning for the ‘perfect partner’ and on the other hand I know that true love comes from within and I once I connect to this I will have all the love that I ever wanted. I am single, so I am choosing to spend this time, like you Anna, on building a strong foundation of love with myself, and gradually letting go of the need for a relationship as I know this ‘need’ just comes from unresolved hurts and a lack of connection with myself, and if a relationship does come along then I know that I would not be imposing these needs on anyone else, I would just be taking all of me into that relationship. All this means is that I can choose to love myself more and more, and then I will be love, and then I can naturally share this love in all my relationships.

Esther Auf der Maur says:October 10, 2015 at 5:55 am

Well said Shevon, and I feel many people believe in the old ideal that we are more if we are in a partner relationship. But I see also many who for this reason allow themselves to live in an arrangement; a way of living in a partnership that is not truly built on loving each other, but on completing the picture and avoiding being single. I used to live in arrangements, and I am becoming much more myself now, as I clearly say ‘no’ to an arrangement. If the relationship is not about sharing love, it’s not for me.

This is classic Kylie and Abby, because a lot of us can relate so easily to it. As you both so playfully have shared that it really makes no sense what so ever and how exhausting this is for us all to be running around and chasing our own tails trying to get what we think we need when in fact it is all there just waiting to be connected to and embraced. Knowing and then accepting that we are already Everything that we ever need is a great place to come to. Then every relationship is going to be beautiful.

Deborah says:October 14, 2015 at 9:47 pm

Absolutely well said – how is it possible to be greater or lesser than a whole ‘me’. How can a sphere be less than a sphere?

I know now that the greatest relationship is first the one I have with myself and how I look after me. We are not taught this however we are taught to look for love first outside of ourselves and not within! If we truly love ourselves first the rest constellates knowing ALL our relationships are important … not just the one with our partner.

“If we truly love ourselves first the rest constellates knowing ALL our relationships are important … not just the one with our partner”… brilliant Vicky Cooke, you are so right here. It is just letting go of what we are taught from a very young age, that we are not complete without a partner and wanting something from someone else that we are not prepared to connect to within ourselves. All relationships are important, and yes, especially the one with ourselves first.

Sonja Ebbinghaus says:October 9, 2015 at 7:03 am

It is actually very good to live by your own and learn who you truly are. For what you may need another person and if you like yourself. The more you know about yourself the more you bring in a relationship. Then you do not complete yourself with another person (which makes you feel always less) but you expand in your relationship.

Absolutely agree, relationships are only about evolving together and never about filling an emptiness or need to be with someone. We grow up with the ideal of romantic love which is a social construct and only creates harm in women and men as the perfect matching prince or princess does not bring fulfillment to life. It is the relationship with ourselves that has to be developed first and from there we can share a space and be love, always dedicated to evolution.

Zofia says:October 10, 2015 at 8:49 am

I agree Kylie, I have received comments from work colleagues in the past excited about the potential of me having a boyfriend if I’ve ever gone on a date…..as if this would now qualify me as part of a group, doing life, and being one of them (partnered people). Having a partner for so many of us is the ultimate non-negotiable destination, however in truth this non-negotiable destination is self-relationship first. What happens thereafter is true partnership or love.

This is such a great question Kylie. For a true realtionship to flourish we have to take all that we are into it right from the word go, other wise we bring expectations and conditions that we then project onto our partner. There is no firm foundation on which to build and as a consequence it will wobble and shake, until it tumbles down.

Ditto Lieke and Gyl – I have received many comments like this over my single life. What is really interesting is your comment Lieke, that we have to feel our own self-worth first as no-one can ever do that for you. That is gold and so true – I realised for many years that I was outsourcing love and my own self-worth. I was not prepared to bring it to myself so I look to partners, friends, family, work colleagues – anyone really – who would bring it to me. What an awesome discovery that I can actually bring it to myself – or even better -that I am actually LOVE already. I just have to allow it out. Giddy up I say!

I love how you say this “I realised for many years that I was outsourcing love and my own self-worth” – that line is gold. It’s so true for many of us that we “outsourced” love…seeking it outside of ourselves when all along it was, and is right under our noses.

What a trick we have played on ourselves – searching for what can never be found outside of ourselves nor supplied by another. We have had the answer’ Love’ with us the whole time, only not chosen to connect to the fact nor let it out.

Love it Sarah…outsourcing love and self-worth…just as in outsourcing in the business world, it is never quite the same quality and care as doing it for ones self.
I too am in the process of tearing up all contracts with anyone else, be they friends, patients, parents, colleagues, the person I walk past on the street. The only source I now sign up with… is me.

Beautiful Rachel and yes, love the ‘outsourcing’ term. It’s exactly what we do. We build our entire life around it actually, with strategies about how and where from next, a constant re-fuelling, always on the hunt for another hit, as this source is never building on itself and is never truly fulfilling. Like you Rachel, I am also tearing up all past contracts that I have used to try to mimic the one and only true contract. The source of my own love and my connection to God it where it’s at. I need strategise no longer nor look no further:))

I agree Sara, beautifully expressed, and no to ‘outsourcing’ for me too.

Zofia says:October 12, 2015 at 8:39 am

How very relatable Rachel Mascord love what you say about outsourcing — absolutely it never is quite the same as when you do something yourself (in-source). Like everything in life learning to do it yourself – to be yourself, as opposed contracting another to do it for you, is never going to truly work. Maybe for the short term, but after time the cracks begin to appear and all is seen for what it is.

This little paragraph is packed full of wisdom and holds the nuggets for a love filled and gorgeous life! I can totally relate to what you say about “outsourcing” love and only really feel that I am beginning to get what self love without compromise really means!

I agree Sarah. How often are we sold as part of the picture of having that perfect partner the fact that our lack of self-worth will be fixed too. It is impossible as they cannot heal a hurt we choose to have which is in truth with ourselves not with anything else!

Giddy up indeed Sarah, my horse has been a little slow out of the gates, but no I realise there is no race afoot, just a steady ride in this most intimate of all relationships that I am committed to till my last breath – me.

So true Lieke, if we are expecting someone else to make us feel our self-worth then we are allowing major issues and emotional attachments to enter into any relationship we may have. At the end of the day we have to personally take responsibility for why we feel this way. The way we are with another is in the end the way we are with ourselves yet it has for so long been sold the other way to us.

Well said Joshua – “if we are expecting someone else to make us feel our self-worth then we are allowing major issues and emotional attachments to enter into any relationship we may have.” This would be pure gold if taught in all our schools and upbringing.

Very wise words Joshua, cutting out all the blame that can go on in relationships when the other person doesn’t match up to what we want them to. Taking responsibility for ourself in this way takes a weight off any relationship.

The weight of self worth is a huge load to dump on a partner and can be a massive strain on a relationship. As you said Lieke, no one else can feel your self worth. We are each responsible for our own self worth and when we take responsibility for it it gives the relationship a lot more space.

With true self-worth and no need to look for its confirmation from another or others we have a lot more freedom in our choices and whether to be in a relationship or single – with true self-worth and a deep sense of connection to who we are there is also no need to feed off others and weigh up their utterances for any hint of rejection or criticism, it is just what it is.

Love what you share Gabriele : “…with true self-worth and a deep sense of connection to who we are there is also no need to feed off others” – the one thing most people say they want in a relationship or complain they don’t get enough or any of, is FREEDOM – that freedom is called SELF-WORTH, and it is personal status-less.

And there is an ongoing refining process of deepening our acceptance and appreciation of ourselves. If we are at ease with ourselves and with life, it will be an instant fracture to such harmony to seek outside for others to tell us who we are or to validate us for how can another know us better than we know ourselves?

Having a lack of self worth and then seeking something in another equals an ongoing dance with hurts and insecurities. Exhausting and not real.
But when we choose to be responsible for ourselves and develop our own self worth… then SELF WORTH PLUS Self WORTH equals a FULL relationship that can deepen and evolve.

This is so true Nikki. If we take all that lack of self worth into a relationship it is exactly that. A dumping on the other person. So if we begin a relationship in this way, it is very likely that it won’t last as we then have huge expectations of the other to fulfil our needs as we are not able to fill them ourselves. But on the other hand, if we learn to take responsibility for ourselves and in doing so learn to love who we are, and take that into a relationship, we begin with a firm foundation from which both people can grow equally. So different to what we have been lead to believe.

Beautifully said Nikki and a partner who has any self-worth will not receive that load which means it gets returned to sender who may well magnify, misinterpret and reinterpret it into something else that they can blame on their partner. This is one of the things that can turn relationships into relationshits!

What a beautiful discussion here, Nikki, Sarah, Joshua, Sandra and so on; it’s our duty and our job to confirm our own self-worth and not need another person to bring that to us. Only when we truly accept ourselves for the amazingness we already are, can we live this, and then bring that to each other, where we just confirm, yes, I am that too!

I can absolutely relate to feeling flattered when people say things along the lines of “I cannot believe you are single”. I can feel this is because I still buy into the belief that being in a relationship is an indicator that I am worth something. Thank you for your honesty Lieke, now that I can see how false this is I am beginning to connect to the truth that I am enough on my own.

This is true Leonne. The more we consider this the more it exposes where comments like this come from. It is such a strong belief in society, to have a partner, children, a house, all that. If you have this, you’re a success, if not, you’re less, or worse, you have failed. As a single woman I am being really tested with this all of the time, and if I stop valuing me for a moment, there is something there telling me I am less, as I am without the picture.

Hi Lieke, I am a single man age 65 and have been single for ten years. My ideals and beliefs based on so much of life on our planet are that we are not complete alone. We come in pairs, two people one female one male in family groups with our children. There are many variations from monogamy to coming together only to reproduce and all variations are found in nature and in humanity. The one and only compulsory requirement for a successful species is to reproduce.

No one can feed and give us self worth, we have to re-learn it for ourselves.
I feel that this is the best process ever, for women and men the same, to establish
this self worth, just like installing a new software into our computer.
It takes many steps to undo the patterns; to fall back, to feel it in our bodies how it is when we give ourselves
away in a relationship. It is so much worth the journey back to truth and the love that we are.

Well said Lieke. and ‘You will find someone soon’ and the many related comments are interesting do add to the ideals and beliefs that finding someone will offer something. What I found rocked my world the most during this last decade since I started studying with Universal Medicine is that the person who most rocked my world is me – and reconnecting to me was the biggest romance I had had in a very long time.

I love this too Leike, it’s brilliance Jane when we get back to this. ‘Reconnecting to me was the biggest romance I had had in a very long time.’ What if we were taught this in schools and these were the front page stories on magazines or Cinderella chose an early night and an exquisite loving hot bath instead of going to the ball and the next day she was wowed by all who met her? Being in love with me is ever growing and evolving and brings me a growing joy so I don’t need to go looking for it and can simply share it with those I meet.

A great point to make Lieke. No one tells you that after you start a relationship or get married that there is work to be done on yourself. If we did I don’t think so many relationships would begin in such high hopes and then end in such recriminations and bitterness – each party blaming the other for the breakdown. No matter who we are with or without we still wake up each morning with ourselves and if there is tension there then that will translate to everyone we come into contact with.

A very good point Michelle, if there is inner tension then that is the relationship that gets reflected outward no matter who we are with. There is work to be done until there is not – and perhaps that is never!

That there is work to be done can appear daunting, but we need to be aware and commit to that it is actually all about forever increasing the love with ourselves and others. Then the work has a purpose that exceeds the effort by far.

Lieke your last line ‘I still have to feel my own self-worth as no one can ever do that for you’ really struck a chord with me because I have been in a relationship for 25 years and it has been a misconception of all of my single friends over the years that my partner somehow makes me complete. Interestingly even though I point out that during the time that I have been with my partner I have also had chronic anxiety and also problems with rage and that it has been only I that has been able to remedy those things my words feel on deaf ears. So ingrained is the myth that a partner is the antidote to everything. It’s similar to the myth that a baby is also the antidote to everything when in truth a baby can fill a need but not truly heal a hurt.

I have always wondered where people got the audacity to ask questions like Why are you not married? Do you want to be? and all the others you have mentioned, unless it its someone very close and it is in the context of what you have been talking about. I just think those sort of questions are rude and none of anyones business. Its great that through Universal Medicine we have learnt to kick such ideals and beliefs right out of the park.

To further on from this, many of us would never have known the truth had Serge Benhayon not chosen to live and express the Truth. Therefor, if it was not for Serge Benhayon reflecting to us to see there is another way, would we not still be asking the same things or if not, at least thinking them?

Great point Gyl. There are many things people ask or think to themselves that carry judgement and make others wrong that many now know the truth of thanks to Serge Benhayon, this has supported me to trust my own inner knowing at times too. Some things I knew the truth of before I heard them confirmed with authority by Serge Benhayon, some of these truths I did not sway on but I resented and felt hurt that others did not see it similarly, whereas now I feel supported to understand the forces of ideals, beliefs and influences such as the media that fuel such questions.

A very loving response Gyl, and true, without Serge Benhayon showing another way my thinking would still be going along in familiar grooves. It’s interesting that the default point does seem to be you’re better off with a partner than being single, which is mad really when you consider the state of most intimate relationships and how few are actually founded on Love. Also the questions assume that you haven’t actually made a choice to be single rather you are a victim of circumstance. Great that these assumptions are being challenged and that through this over time the whole way we hold intimate partnerships and whether we are in one or not will be redefined.

Perhaps such a question also displays a level of insecurity within the questioner, the need for conformity to a way of living. Success being measured by whether we are coupled is a rather hollow expression of success.

Hey Kevin, It just exposes what Gyl is talking about how we all of have pictures that we need to be true, and yes it is then imposed onto others. We need to take a leaf out of the Vietnamese people “Live and Let Live”. Through our own inspiration on what we know is true and living that is all that is needed. No need to preach or ask of another what we want — expressing my own truth and what my deep feelings offer has been the most rewarding experience I could of ever asked for.

Sometimes these questions come loaded with the person’s own stuff. They need to criticise another’s choices rather than feel the jealousy they are in, as at times a single woman exposes their own choice to be in a relationship that has stemmed from a need not a truth, and they are now aware of this but feel stuck and regretting their marriage. We need to read what is really going on behind many of these comments.

Absolutely Mary-Louise. These questions come from insecurity or the other person needing confirmation from outside themselves that what they’ve chosen is ‘right’. Being single and showing the world that not only is this ok, but that you are shining and loving life is very confronting for people and it does bring out jealousy in others.

Yes I agree Mary-Louise always need to read every situation as it is. Sometimes it is absolutely the true thing for a person to be single and sometimes it is not. Equally for some people it is very supportive to eat beef and for some it is not. It is not natural for us all to have the same body size and shape. We can’t say you should never ask someone why they are single because that could be valid question in an intimate non imposing situation. Clearly there are huge ideals and beliefs and impositions around all this single or not stuff and so we don’t want to go the other way and make it some sort of politically incorrect thing to state the obvious or ask a simple question. As you say it all comes down to energy and the intention. Of course the other thing is that NONE of us are single as we are all one but that is a whole other story

Great point Mary-Louise, often these questions do come loaded with all that. It is such a gift we have given ourselves to now being able to choose to be more aware and not react to these questions, as these questions often are their reaction to what they feel exposed by the fact that another person has made a true choice for themselves; the choice to live and deepen their own self love, instead of hiding in an ‘arrangement’ because of a lack of self worth, and maybe thinking that we are not worthy of love. This is another lie we feed ourselves to keep the lack going. How awesome we can now choose to live the love we all already are within! Thank God for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to bring this knowing and understanding back to us, as they have for me.

Mary-Louise that is a really great point to raise. Interestingly I get asked often if I am married. Sometimes it feels like a genuine question of interest, but other times there feels like there is more to the question than is being asked. As you say it’s important to read what is going on behind what is being asked. It’s the same with being asked if you have children. I do not and I can get sympathy and jealousy as well as just a curiosity. My responsibility is in my response and observing if it’s bringing any reaction up for me.

Gyl thank you for this blog. It is so common for women to feel incomplete without a partner. I remember feeling exactly the same way when I was single. We buy into the picture we have been fed from every angle since we were very young. Even with a partner however that incomplete feeling resurfaces. As you say ‘the love I had been looking for all along is actually inside of me.’ When I started to connect with that, everything changed.

It might be a necessary experience to realize that relationship is not able to fill the inner lack so that we can finally learn to expose the beliefs and illusions for what they are. They way we feel as single or in a relationship simply depends on the relationship we have with ourselves, everything that plays out in relationships comes from there.

Hi Gyl,
A much needed topic of discussion you present here.
There is certainly a wealth of stories, fables, movies, news articles about what a successful relationship looks like, what love is and how we know if we have ‘made it.’ From some of the first stories we hear to the movies we watch as teenagers there always seems to be an end result of passionate romance. People being incomplete without the other. I love ‘love’ – I always have done – But I too felt very much the victim and that something was wrong with me in never having or finding my ‘other half’ – if out a lot of pressure on me and on men to fill the picture I had in my head. And of course this isn’t just me – this happened to most of my friends who were also raised by the ideal of what they thought love was. But what happens if we stop thinking about love and start feeling? What happens if we consider self love, what happens if we say perhaps this lonely pining, expectational love isn’t true? Universal Medicine has given me the support to stand on my own two feet and do that – and start to feel what love is – a forever holding, an equality, a self-love, an honesty. Now I can say I am in love, and I am surrounded by so much love too – of people who equally know the true meaning and live it.

Beautifully said Gyl Rae – I love your writing, thank you. Yes, the message of our world seems all to often to point to the need for external recognition as validation of our worthiness as complete human beings. Yet for a very long time we have been presented with the very wisdom you are sharing here – that what we are seeking is already within us. The realisation that ‘these are not my thoughts’ is an important one I’d say. We are bombarded with messages that encourage us to look outside for the ‘answer’. Haven’t we been looking long enough now to take a chance on looking in the other direction and see what’s there!?

Thank you Richard. We have been deliberately playing games for eons, pretending we don’t know truth when every answer lies within. Even denying we know the answer is a game, it’s like asking a small child their name and them saying I don’t know. It’s the same as choosing to stay on the merry go round even though it’s making us sick.

I know this that you speak of Gyl. I can say that I have connected deeply to the truth, as many of us have. And yet, still I have my moments where the weight of the ideals and beliefs I have taken on affect me and there is a wish to be in a relationship with another (though I have many relationships around me all of the time), it is a beautiful thing to experience a loving partnership.

Looking back on my childhood and continuing into adulthood as you share there is so much outside pressure to get a ‘good’ job, save for and create a new home, get married, have children, then ‘live happily forever after’. So much pressure to become and follow the age old trend of tradition something that, is perceived to be the right thing – BUT for whom! In your words Gyl “The love I had been looking for all along is actually inside of me” this so takes away any need to be something other than the amazing love that we truly are. Whether married or not. Beautiful sharing Gyl thank you.

Most will have spent a large part of our life falling in and out of love. Is it not like having a nice warm bath? When you’re in the tub its warm and surrounds you but when you get out you are naked, exposed and cold. This is all brought to you by what the world has conditioned us to believe is what we need to be whole… We only became less when we forget that we are and will always be complete and not broken. When we claim the love we are… we will never be naked, exposed or left out in the cold.

It is also great to recognise that the warm bath can sometimes be about comfort and not what we actually need. Hiding in a cosy relationship that keeps us warm may feel great but it does not necessarily mean there is evolution in it. Claiming the love we are applies to both being in a relationship and being single.

This is a great article Gyl and is very much needed, I agree we are bombarded as girls growing up that life is about meeting mr.right and settling down and having children and living happily ever after and that if we do not find mr.right we have somehow failed, this is awful and is why it is common to be in relationships for the sake of being in a relationship rather than it being about true love. Your article is very inspiring Gyl, you are a true role model for girls and woman.

It is so time to expose all these ideas and beliefs, otherwise we are sitting in our own prison – wondering, why the world looks so bad and waiting for the prince to rescue us. For me it was so healing to understand, that everything what I need is within me, no need to look for something outside of me. That is just wonderful.

Wow, Gyl it was a joy to read your blog and to feel the completeness of you – you stand so tall as your beauty shines out from every cell of your body. You truly are an inspiring woman and your blog confirms this. It is the most amazing feeling when as a woman we can feel complete without any need to be anything other than to be ourselves in our essence. When I read this I could feel the beauty of allowing myself the grace to really connect with my essence and to know me more intimately.

A great blog Gyl exposing there is a definitely a consciousness in place that is manipulative and controlling through ideals and beliefs that foster lack of self worth in women – and this is accepted as the ‘normal way to be.
“Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not”.

There absolutely is a consciousness that is in place that is very manipulative – we are fed from such a young age these ideals and beliefs and they do foster lack of self worth in women. We do have the responsibility for ourselves to not continue to feed that, but the consciousness is so thick, so ingrained that it does take seeing and feeling the refection of another, women who just have a connection with themselves that is so honouring and so loving, to begin to break through that thick consciousness.

That is a great article Gyl, I was single most of my life until now and people questioned me and went through the same list as you did. I used to jump into relationships without taking time to know my future partner as I was so looking for emotional relief. Eventually, I started to feel good about myself and like you I was introduced to what I was actually searching for with the support of Serge Benhayon, and it was already inside me.

Yes great article Gyl. Growing up I had those same ideals and beliefs and my self worth was very low.
I now stand tall claiming myself more and realise how lovely it is to be single knowing I am enough whether I am single or in a relationship. It’s great to be me and living in a true way at this time

“I realised for most of my life I had chosen to believe that there was something wrong with me when I was single.” Gyl, I can relate to this too… in fact, probably most women have experienced this feeling and can relate to what you share. It was only until I too heard the presentations of Serge Benhayon that I realised the love I was seeking was inside me…all I had to do was to connect to it. Being single has been a gift, one that had allowed me to get a deep knowing of myself and to be without need for others to prop me up.

Yes Rachel me too – to be in full acceptance of what is ( like being single) and really really getting to know my self first, and learning to love and appreciate my self. Gone the NEED for someone else, now just confirming and consolidating what I know myself to be and shining this out into the world too.

I agree Rachel that being single has been a gift for me and allowed me to build a true relationship with myself and then expand this out to others. In the past I have been so distracted by being in a relationship (and often welcomed this distraction) and focussed all my attention on my partner and chosen to neglect my relationship with myself, this is now unfolding and blossoming and feels divine.

Yes Rachel I too had always felt like something was wrong with me because I wasn’t in a relationship. Now I see that I really needed to honour my own relationship with myself and cherish the love I hold within. This has had a flow on effect in all relationships in my life and has opened me up to a whole new world of connections.

Those beliefs you describe aren’t just sneaky, they are insidiously horrid as people reinforce them to you because they leave a deep mark that you have failed in some way. There are many people who are in relationships who are not happy at all but are left alone and this is viewed as ‘normal’ You are an amazing powerful woman, as we all are, whether we’re in a relationship or not is another subject.

Beautiful Gyl to find the love you were looking for was inside you all along . This is the greatest gift we can know and have for ourselves first and from this feel this love for everyone. A very real presentation of the world and the ideals and beliefs we can all take on that are not ours but come in and undermine everything we are ,sneakily and unlovingly which can keep us searching and empty. The truth is presented by Serge Benahyon his family and Universal Medicine and this is offering the missing link to our very knowing , our health and well being in every walk of life and society and uncovers the lies we have been fed. Thank you Gyl this is so great to read and so helpful for so many to enjoy the love they naturally are and is the basis of all relationships .

True Tricia, ‘to find the love you were looking for was inside you all along ‘ This is the essence. When we find love inside ourselves, we find that love is everywhere, and no longer seek it, but live it.

Thank you, Gyl for writing this – many women choose to be single after leaving long term relationships and it is interesting to ponder on our self-worth and how it is possible to feel very lonely in a relationship and experience great joy in a single life. It is not a partner we need but true connection with ourselves, then we can experience joy in all our relationships.

Absolutely agree, Carmel, I have now been widowed for 11 years so have been living a single life for those years. For the past 9 years now, I have been attending presentations by Serge Benhayon with Universal Medicine. In that time I have learned so much about my true self, I am so appreciative of the fact that I have been able to concentrate on that, with no distraction. It is a period that I have treasured, and can relate totally to what you say “It is not a partner we need but true connection with ourselves, then we can experience joy in all our relationships”. I have experienced much joy within the past few years, and love to share that in all my relationships.

So true Carmel. Ending a long term relationship was fraught with terror for me at first but my life as a single woman has allowed me to really develop a much more loving relationship with myself that I bring into all my relationships.

One of the challenges in leaving long terms relationships, is to let go of any previous experiences and not taint any new friendships with expectations of the same behaviour happening again – we have changed therefore any new relationships will reflect that change. As we become more loving with ourselves, so we are opening up to being more loving with others and receiving the same loving attention back.

Gyl, I love that single women are speaking honestly and openly about their experiences. ’for most of my life I had chosen to believe that there was something wrong with me when I was single’. Many women, including myself, will relate to this and many thankfully no longer feel this way. These questions have been asked of me in the past and still are! If these myths about being a woman and single are to be smashed, we have a responsibility to hold the hammer that wields gently to question and challenge. Recently, I met someone I hadn’t seen for a long time, he asked ‘Is there a Mr J…?’ When I answered ‘No’, does there have to be?’ He replied ‘What a waste!.’ Inspired by your blog, I wielded my hammer gently in writing and expressed how I felt about the question and statement. It is intrusive, I said, to ask a person (man or woman) if they are in a relationship; and to suggest that being single is a ‘waste’ shows a lack of appreciation of how some single women, like myself see themselves. No man or woman should be considered less because they are not in a relationship. Being single is often a choice, and many single women, like myself, feel complete, loved and beautiful, just the way they are. This is not to say we do not love men, we do, but love ourselves equally so..

Love what you have written Kehinde, and particularly the last line in which I feel the real power of a woman who has connected with herself and is free to choose. ‘This is not to say we do not love men, we do, but love ourselves equally so..’

Fairy Tales are not true so why do we pursue such beliefs and ideals? Great to live in the reality of yourself and what your essence is. Being single is not a crime. Sharing and growing with a partner is a whole lot easier when we are with the truth of the skin we are in! Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine are certainly great support for singles and couples alike.

Great blog, Gyl. It is so interesting to consider the beliefs and ideals we take on due to a lack of self worth, and how endemic it is. Our feelings of worthlessness influence our thoughts and behaviour to the extent that it can disconnect us from the love we naturally are, and give us a false perception of ourselves. As you have pointed out, there is so much to cherish about the unique qualities we bring to the world, and we do not need anyone or anything to make us feel worthy of expressing this in full.

Great point Janet and to me it does come down to lack of self worth. As I worked on my self worth those beliefs I needed a partner just slipped away. I din’t do anything other than start loving and appreciating myself more. That is the underlying factor behind why we take on such beliefs. It is the same for both the single person and the person making the comments suggesting you will be ok when you have a partner. Lack of self worth is behind all.

Yes Kerstin, only we are able to change our level of self worth, no partner can do this for us, no amount of compliments or successes. It has to come from our own feelings that we are of value and worth caring about.

I agree Janet, I changed myself many times in relationships as it made others feel uncomfortable, and in truth still do at times. Instead of saying no this is me and this is all I bring. Not only can we do this in partner relationships, but with friends, family and work colleagues too. It’s actually an arrogant game to play, in toning ourselves and our divine qualities down – why would any other person on this planet not deserve the equal fullness of our expression and love? And who are we to say no you can only get this much and you can have more? This is just keeping the idea of separatism alive, rather than the truth we are all exactly one and the same.

Gyl, a great look into what we subconsciously are led to believe and even feel. The insidious way in which these thoughts permeate our way of living is truly quite scary. Understanding and knowing that we are enough in ourselves is the greatest truth we could ever be taught. Until that time when this is the norm we will be breeding generations more people who look outside of themselves for love which they already have within.

If all these ideals and beliefs are being used to cover up our lack of self-worth then that sets up the next generation to not value themselves as they see from all around a lack just being covered up. If we value and love ourselves as we are then equally that is shared not only to the next generation but everyone . To be able to stand tall and be comfortable with being single in a world that says ‘you should be married with kids by now’ says a lot.

Hi Gyl Rae, I loved reading your blog about choosing to be single. I find the freedom of your expression so very refreshing and true – and it seems to me we have all been fed a furphy over the many years, especially post 2nd world war, when young girls, from tiny, were given dolls with feeding bottles, prams and toy stoves, and brushes and pans to ‘play’ with – just like mummy. It’s almost as though a genie of sorts has opened up the permission bottle and given young women a choice. A choice about being single was not even on the horizon that I knew of in my teens – and there were some derogatory terms and cliches aimed at young women who preferred to focus on their careers. How truly remarkable and beautiful that the choice is knowingly there for one to make – and without anybody else’s permission. I thank God and Serge Benhayon through the Ageless Wisdom Teachings and the presentations at Universal Medicine etc., as we are now remembering that it is possible to be ‘whole’ and not ‘needing’ a partner necessarily to ‘complete’ the picture.

This is so true Gyl – we are fed the false ideal of the perfect union through fairytales, books, music, movies and just about everything on offer through our culture, so that we are sent on an endless and futile quest for the ‘perfect partner’ and the most ‘perfect love’ when all along, true love is found within. True union is our willingness and ability to harmonise both the male and the female energies within our one body, no matter the external gender. It is part of our journey home, our path back to Soul, where true love resides. By balancing the duality, we arrive back at One, true androgyny, the in-breath and the out-breath of God, in perfect harmony. The external pursuit of love, that is, looking for it in another before connecting with it ourselves, as well as the preoccupation with gender at the expense of understanding what both the maleness and femaleness pertain to, is pure illusion designed to trip us up on our journey back to our hearts and the Kingdom of God inside them, For it is here, that our union with our true self, God and The All, takes place – a match made in Heaven.

I completely agree, Liane, that the focus on finding a partner can be oftentimes a distraction from marrying the maleness and femaleness within oneself that one is re connected with their androgynous Soul. When the desire for a mate comes from a lack or a need and is based upon ideal or belief it falls into the distracting category – a distraction that can, and has, lasted for lifetimes. Being single for me, as for Gyl, has been an awesome reconnecting within. Any future relationship will have me bringing this full version of me to the relationship – not the idealised version of expectation.

Beautiful Liane. When I feel really centred within my body I feel as though I am a Soul expressing. it is a balance between the maleness and femaleness ( the right and the left) . In this expression is the full connection with God, and no need for another person, only to experience the Joy of expressing God and feeling the Harmony of another person who is equally of that source.

Great blog Gyl. “Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not.” The set-up is everywhere – in books, stories, magazines, the media and in the music industry. As I read stories from books to my grandchildren I am now feeling to make up stories rather than read them the ‘happy ever after’ scenario so often depicted. I guess men experience this too – the needing for a woman to ‘make them happy?’

These lines are truth to the core Gyl: “Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not.”
How very evil that which teaches a woman is not enough on her own, whether she be in a relationship with another or not. To me, this is a very deliberate maneuver to undermine the sacredness each and every female carries deep within her womb, the holding of all life.

This is so true Liane. Not only are we set up to not feel enough without a partner, but also not enough with one! I have definitely felt this – wanting a partner to hide behind and confirm that I am not enough. Bleh. Thank fully I have learnt that I am enough just as I am and meeting a partner in this fullness is a completely different experience. It feels like a real relationship based on true love instead of need.

Your interesting comment on Gyl’s blog has inspired me to ask exactly what is the “evil that which teaches a woman is not enough on her own”? I wonder if it includes the men that don’t feel they are enough to live alone? We can all take responsibility and empower ourselves by teaching our children that women are enough and that men and women are equal.

And not to forget how many lies about women abound and have been spread for so long – like the one about having been carved out of the first man’s rib! If you want to keep someone or half the human population in this instance down and stop them from discovering who they really are and what they bring to the world and humanity, what better way than making up stories.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the untruths and lies that have been spread about woman since ancient times. A woman’s power and divinity is in her connection to her Soul and the sacredness that she brings. It is no wonder millions throughout time have tried to squash a woman and her power down.

Yes Liane, a woman living in and from her sacredness has the power to restore true harmony. Something we are surely missing. No matter our gender, when we re-connect to the truth of our purpose here we support each other and we evolve as one.

Absolutely Liane. All these stories and manoeuvres are perfectly designed to shun and reject women’s power when they are in or out of a relationship… Many women feel they are never enough, because they are trying to fit the ‘happy family’ ideal, or the ‘adventurous single lady life’ that is so glamourised by the media. All is designed to keep them looking OUT rather than at the beauty withIN.

Being single has a stigma attached to it that makes us feel less, that we are inadequate without a man, I feel we know within ourselves this is not true but we are bombarded by magazines media and the ‘happy ever after’ syndrome that you speak about in Disney films Gyl. So many children books portray this theme, no wonder we grow up thinking that happy ever after means finding your Prince or Princess. Knowing we are already the love that we have been searching for, changes our whole perception of self worth and takes away the need for someone else to give us the love we already are.

I agree with you Gyl, all the ideals and beliefs that we are fed but unfortunately buy lead us into one unsuitable relationship after another, unsuitable because the me I take to the relationship isn’t the real me but a composite of ideals and beliefs, all false. The same with the other person. So what chance is there of it being a true relationship when its foundations are built on lies? So we end up in loveless arrangements rather than relationships. I recently chose to be single for around four years after separation in my relationship. In those four years I learned a huge amount about myself that I would not have learned if I had bounced straight into another relationship, and by dealing with those ideals and beliefs that got in the way of previous relationships I now feel ready for a true relationship. So there is definitely a time when being single is the true decision.

Great call Doug, what truth does a relationship grow on if it’s foundations are built on lies. That is not to say to go out there and run around ending all relationships, as that is not the answer – but to be wiling to work on whats not loving and true together and with yourself.

You make many valuable points Gyl about the way girls and women are socialised to feel incomplete without a man. The worth and true qualities of women stand alone, the illusion that we “need” men and children to be complete is totally false and very damaging, not just to ourselves but to those around us. Imagine a society where from birth a girl is honoured as powerful and sacred, is nurtured to love herself exactly as she is, and grows up knowing she needs no thing to complete her as she is enough unto herself?

The expectations that we place on relationships is absolutely massive, Gyl. They really take on a weight of them being everything, or defining who we are through them. What we do to ourselves in this is limit what we can be by relying on someone else to tell the world who we are. Even when we are in a relationship we can have a level of scrutiny levelled at us which slots us into a pigeon hole. The questions around are you getting married? Will you have kids? Will you be career driven? All of these questions do nothing but place a wall around what being in an intimate relationship can be.
A true relationship must start with ourselves as being the most intimate relationship we will ever have. From there we are able to accept another to share our lives with from a place which does not ask for the other to fulfil a role that we are missing from ourselves.

Thank you Gyl for this very insightful piece of writing that let’s us all know that there is no-thing wrong with us if we choose not to be in a relationship. However with a foundation of self-love and self-worth we CAN be open to relationships – no longer coming from a place of need, but just with the openness to share our Love with another. Keep writing Gyl.

Great blog Gyl. How true that these thoughts that there is something wrong with you if you don;t have a partner, are not your thoughts. And great that you have asked the question, ‘So where had these thoughts come from that I chose to believe were mine? They had been fed to me since childhood, throughout my teenage years, and as I grew into a beautiful woman. They also came from pictures of how life is ‘meant’ to be; in society, magazines, media, films, books, television, movies and fairy tales.’ We are surrounded by a web of stories that feed us an ideal of how to be, when all the time this divine and gorgeous love is inside us and can be expressed at any moment.

I absolutely get what you are expressing here Gyl…as I have experienced and felt the same judgements coming my way for choosing to be single. I have not regretted the choices that I have made to stay single and develop myself and my self-worth as I know that the next relationship that I enter will be amazing – because I now know how amazing I am and will not settle for anything less than an amazing relationship.

That’s the key Marika, How many of us start from being amazing and accepting nothing less for our-self first?! This takes discipline in working on it ourselves, instead what I used to do was take no responsibility for how I was feeling and go out drinking and drug-taking (numbing my feelings) and be a victim of my own circumstances. Most occasions I did not pick up and felt very low for days after. The quality off my pick-ups were one-night stands. I did not feel good the next day and I did not want to see the women again. Not really fun, and so many of us continue to do this. When those women finally get married when they are older, it is possible they have slept with people you know. That could be your wife – gone are the days when people actually wait.

There is so much in this blog Gyl that needs being read by the entire female population of this world! I can totally identify with what you have said, and I feel what gives fertile ground for these thoughts and images to take hold is the fact that most of us are not confirmed in who we are as young girls which leaves us feeling incomplete and sets up the lack of self-worth. I know that I have spent a lot of my life looking for a love outside of me, even after I had had various intimations and insights which were telling me otherwise – so strong was that momentum and belief and the unwillingness to take true responsibility for my life and my love. It was in many ways the easy option except it doesn’t turn out to be that in reality as all one’s lack of love is exposed within a partnership. Whether you are with a partner or not, as a woman you still have to discover and live the power and beauty of being yourself and leave behind the behaviours that reduce or water this down.

‘Whether you are with a partner or not, as a woman you still have to discover and live the power and beauty of being yourself and leave behind the behaviours that reduce or water this down.’ Thank you Josephine, this needs to be said. Some women hide behind the facade of being in a relationship and give up on themselves. I know of relationships that failed because women shaped themselves around partners, and by doing so, lost themselves and their dignity.

How many of women and men do this ” Some women hide behind the facade of being in a relationship and give up on themselves”. Why do we give up on ourselves that much to chase love out side of ourselves? Answer – There is no true reflection around us showing what true love is. Thank God for Serge Benhayon who showed me what true love was again.

Well said Josephine – particularly what you say here “I feel what gives fertile ground for these thoughts and images to take hold is the fact that most of us are not confirmed in who we are as young girls which leaves us feeling incomplete and sets up the lack of self-worth.” How beautiful it would be if when we are young our elders (parents, teachers, family, friends) sit with us and talk through life and choices and that whatever we choose e.g. to be single, married, have children, not have children etc etc is okay – and for us to feel for ourselves in our own body what feels right for each and every one of us rather than looking outside of ourselves before we make choices.

Absolutely Jane, these kind of dialogues with young girls (and boys) would open the way for a life rich in possibilities and of course constant confirmation of their being enough and the unique qualities they are bringing in just being themselves would make a massive difference too.

Gyl it reminds me how I always was hunting for a partner because then all was ok.
Which it finally never was because that way of getting a partner which is so filled with needs and beliefs is more to call an arrangement then a relationship. It had nothing to do with love but wanting to be accepted in the world.
These days I go for building true love with myself first and so with my partner, and I am aware for all the not true beliefs coming up while building love. We call them out and move on. It can be challenging sometimes but all worthwhile to break this consciousness which is out there around us and to make life about love again.

That is a great point you are bringing up here Sylvia, the huge difference to enter a relationship out of a need, trying to fill your emptiness or out of being full of love wanting to share that. Any relationship that is, be it a friend, a partner, a colleague, your boss, a parent or with a child.

Wow – at 33 …. children were not even a consideration for me at that age. When I chose to have my first child I was nearly 38, and my 2nd one was born when I was nearly 41 – and it was just a perfect age for my self and their dad too. It was a conscious decision made that that was the time in our lives that we felt right for us.

“It wasn’t until I met Serge Benhayon and attended presentations and workshops by Universal Medicine that I came to know the truth. And that is, the love I had been looking for all along is actually inside of me.” – the truth is so simple and so empowering, it’s crazy we choose to fall for anything else. Thank you for an amazing blog Gyl.

Even knowing these thoughts are not mine it has sometimes been difficult for me to free myself from them and thus the feeling of self worth that they bring. I feel that my giving into these thoughts can only happen if I am not connected to myself and the love that I am. I realise that having a love affair with myself actually allows me to have a love affair with everyone if I stay steady in my connection. And then why let it be just an affair? Why not let it be love plain and simple absolutely and forever?

From your blog I can see how many ideals and beliefs are fed to women about what and how they need to be when they grow up, and hence by taking these on they miss out on growing into the amazing women they were destined to be. Many hide and live unsure of themselves. At the presentations of Universal Medicine I have met women that truly know themselves, and have strength and fragility that is like no other. Thank you Gyl! Its lovely to feel your powerful and beauty-full expression.

Great blog Gyl, and so much of this I could relate to, including the belief that if you were single something was wrong with you (& another belief that went along with this was that if you chose not to have children something was wrong with you)! It’s taken me a long time to unravel this, along with many other ideals and beliefs I’ve held about how a woman should be, but with the support of the many esoteric women’s health presentations, I’ve finally come to understand and expose many of these that have gone hand in hand with a lack of self worth. Within the past year I have been divorced and am officially single and having worked a lot on my self worth, am now able to say that the most fulfilling relationship I have is the relationship with myself!

Beautiful Angela. Having a fulfilling relationship with self is a complete game changer. My relationship with myself has improved remarkably over the last year and I now enjoy sharing myself with others instead of hiding myself away. The quality of my relationships is incredible now that I have a foundational relationship with myself now.

You have covered many of the ideals we can hold as women and the many myths and beliefs that cement these stories we clutch to. To bring honesty to why we buy into these myths and what we are seeking to escape is a great needed step to returning to the women we are – to replace our angst and empty space with self-love, honour and appreciation of our every quality and to know and value our worth.

Great piece of myth busting Gyl. Its so true that these pictures to live up to are fed to girls from so very young, its already long implanted in tender young lives and playing out well before kindergarten. I love listening to conversations between my daughter and other girls even as far back as day care, aged 4 and hearing things like a laymate in a group saying to the other girls: “who are you going to marry when you grow up?” – and my daughter saying very plainly “not everyone gets married, you don’t have to get married if you don’t want to, but if I marry someone he would have to be very amazing – just like me”. There was no need or ‘hooks’ in the way she delivered it, it was both adorable and powerful – and stood out in its absolute rareness. This should not be the rare exception, all our young women should be growing knowing they are themselves first before being anything else to anyone or anything else, and that they cannot be defined by being a married woman, single, a career woman, a mother or any other definition outside of who they and we all, naturally are. Thank you for your blog Gyl, supporting the breaking down of these harmful old packages we currently curse our young with across time and culture.

Kate, I just wanted to express how powerful and amazing your comment felt in my body, especially when you spoke of the wisdom of the words coming from one so young as your daughter when she was little – how absolutely divinely delivered.
Thank you for sharing this intimate portraiture of your child playing so naturally wise.

Wow Kate, I love this, divinely inspired wisdom of a 4 year old ‘“not everyone gets married, you don’t have to get married if you don’t want to, but if I marry someone he would have to be very amazing – just like me”. I feel her words be captured and shared everywhere

Hi Kate, truly beautiful the wisdom your daughter shares with her friends. A reflection for the other girls that changes everything about what the world tells them to be or do. It reminds me of my daughter who sat in the car after a new year’s celebration at a friend’s house. This friend, who is an absolute beautiful tender and powerful woman, living by herself was an inspiration and a reflection for my daughter of a woman not being married and not having children and being amazing and living a full live. She said to me: I am not sure if I want to get married and have children, because not all woman do.” and she could feel that there was nothing missing if a woman chooses different. And we talked about that there are many choices to live your life being a woman. I didn’t realize until that moment that as young as she was, she already recognized the belief that the world has on how to be a woman. It was great to see how she realized the un-truth of this belief herself by the different reflections she got from woman around her living their amazing self in various ways.

I can feel the power in your comment Kate. How amazing would it be if teachers at school would live and present about this fact that everyone is coming from the same love, and that this love is our power and strength that needs to be nurtured and treated tenderly.

Wow Kate I love the wisdom of your four year old, it is much needed in kindergarten to break down the myths and destructive impositions and allowing children to live naturally. It warms my heart to read that children are already doing this, and are bought up to know themselves. what a great line ”supporting the breaking down of these harmful old packages we currently curse our young with across time and culture.”

Kate and Gyl, there are so many ideals held out there for us as in how we should be, and being married and with children is one of them. It’s amazing to hear how strongly your daughter knows that she is great as she is and that marriage will not make her, it will be her being amazing with someone amazing. And yes Kate that is rare, and talking about it like this blog and comments is a start, and it feels I need to look at how I may hold any of those beliefs myself for me or others, whether spoken or unspoken – it can be as subtle, (or not so) as seeing myself as less in any way because I am single, rather than celebrating the joy of me in how I am in each moment; it’s anything really where I look out there and say I need that thing to feel complete (a lie, but one we’ve all been fed for a very long time.)

Kate how gorgeous to hear your daughter say that with such confidence in knowing who she is. Such wisdom. I sense that her confidence and self-knowing will only grow as she get older and all of her choices will come from that knowing.

How great Kate that your daughter has this strength and wisdom at 4, and as you say, ‘This should not be the rare exception, all our young women should be growing knowing they are themselves first before being anything else to anyone or anything else, and that they cannot be defined by being a married woman, single, a career woman, a mother or any other definition outside of who they and we all, naturally are’, absolutely.

So cool, Gyl Rae – another bombshell of love in the form of a blog. This blog does make it so obvious what an amount of stories we are all fed about how to be, look or act to have worth and be loved. In truth nothing we can do will make us feel more valuable. Only when we discover that the true treasure lies within, that we ourselves are the treasure we will realise that there is nothing to do or search for and a feeling of stillness will settle in. The stillness of being enough. And not only enough, but simply amazing.

Gyl Rae, you touch something very important here.
I always wondered and knew that something was not right about those thoughts, ideas, beliefs and restrictions. To hear you say this reconnects me to the truth that those thoughts were never mine. And that who I am stands free.

A superb blog Gyl. To be able to stand back and realise that certain thoughts are not yours is huge. We are sold so much rubbish as kids and as adults as well, that we can actually believe these thoughts and tear shreds off ourselves. The reactions to these thoughts and the destructive behaviours that both men and women play out highlights the lack of self worth that you brilliantly talk about. There is no self worth in a tub of ice cream, chocolate, several bottles of wine or a one night stand or ten.

And this is the true reality that most live – thoughts that have been given to us, beliefs that incarcerate us and a false ‘normal’ to aspire to that is at odds with simplicity and an utter lie. To believe we are individuals with original thought shows just how far we have strayed from our connection to God and to Truth.
There are no words to adequately describe the grandness of the blessing bestowed on us all by the teachings and revelations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and the Masters who have walked before.

Gorgeous Gyl. I have received the same comments from people for many years. They can’t understand why I am single and why I am not desperately looking for a man. It’s appalling that people think that women are not complete when they are on their own, but as you say, we were all fed these ideals and beliefs growing up. It’s time to change them! Women can live amazing fulfilling lives whether they are in a relationship or not.

The trick here is that we believe the most important relationship to have is with another who we are sharing a bed with so this becomes our aim. Whereas I have come to learn it is with myself first and then equally so any relationships I have with others whether family, friends, work colleagues or partners.

True Julie, from those early fairy tales we are told that the most important relationship to have is with a partner, not that the most important relationship we have is with ourselves… this is the one we carry with us everywhere for all time.

I love what you are all saying here. It’s not even been a consideration that we can have a relationship with ourselves and understand who we are in fact are. If I had learnt about this when I was younger I would have had no need to search endlessly for the ‘perfect’ relationship and to feel complete. This belief a great evil, because we are already complete and perpetuating the belief that we are only complete when we are with another does not serve anyone.

As I read your comment Rebecca and read Gyl’s blog it strikes me that there is another ideal and belief in the mix; that if you are stunningly beautiful, as both you and Gyl are, it is inconceivable that you would be without a partner from wider society…if you are not physically beautiful in the terms deemed by society then it goes part-way to explain why you might be on your own as woman. This is warped but we do think like that don’t we. True Rebecca, “Women can live amazing fulfilling lives whether they are in a relationship or not.” Relationships do not define who we are.

Very true Rachel. If someone is beautiful and single, there must be something wrong with them! It is as though the beauty can only be confirmed by having a partner and also makes out that perhaps there is something wrong with you or that maybe you have 12 toes if you are beautiful and single. Physically beautiful women should have partners as isn’t that what every man is looking for? These beliefs are also saying that men are not capable of appreciating the beauty past what is skin deep.

Love what you have written Rachel, once I found my essence and the goal to feel good in my body .. this feeling was more important then how I looked physically. The same in my relationship now it is about the feeling between us first. If there is tension then we call it out and bring back to that feeling of love between us again. If I do not feel good in myself or I feel disconnected it is my number 1 priority to get me back! My feeling before anything else is my directive.

Recently I went to an event in my old hometown, where I hadn’t seen the people for over two years. I have changed. I knew I felt – and looked – amazing, and many people commented and complimented me. It was interesting to observe that one woman asked me if I had a partner now? As if I couldn’t look that good just being – and loving – myself! The ingrained ideals and beliefs in society are so strong – even among independent liberal-minded women.

How very amazing Sue that in that single moment with that woman that you were able to break down the myths of women needing a man to look and feel amazing. Just the fact that you were single and looking amazing spoke volumes.

With us women focusing on not being complete without a man and feeling not good enough, especially without a partner we overlook the power and beauty that is within each and everyone of us. And powerful and glorious a woman is in the fullness of her being enough, just as she is.

“I came to know the truth. And that is, the love I had been looking for all along is actually inside of me.” This is a profound realisation, Gyl, and for me, with all my beliefs and ideals, I have found it a challenge at times to accept. However, with the support of the Benhayon family and Universal Medicine it is at long last beginning to sink in that it is true.

I absolutely agree, there shouldn’t be anything wrong about being single neither should anybody feel less without a partner. As you point out this requires a shift in our way of thinking as we are flooded everywhere with the belief that being single is being incomplete and that somebody hasn’t quite made it in life.

This is a gorgeous sharing, Gyl. I can feel you shining out in the joy of being who you truly are. Many of us need a partner so we can feel good about ourselves but to know and truly appreciate who we are first is such a loving way to be and the world feels this. The ideals and beliefs about relationships are there because many of us have not truly appreciated ourselves first and need another for confirmation.

Well said Anne, that many of us need a partner to confirm to them that they are of any worth. Allowing this false belief in our relationships makes us dependent of each other and by doing so we base the relationship on this need. As we are never able to fulfil all the needs of another we will be in continue reaction of not fulfilling the agreements of the relationship, holding ourselves trapped in the illusion that life is about that and to once get it right. But as you say, it is actually about appreciating and confirming the joy that we already are first and then we do not need any relationship anymore to fulfil each others needs as there will not be any. Relationship will then be about celebrating life as what the coming together as human beings actually is.

Beautifully expressed Nico – we can hold the partner to ransom, until the partner fulfills our needs, terrible agreement, this setup can only fail and it doesn’t make sense at all. We can only love ourselves first and then we are able to live a relationship.

Great exposure Gyl over the ideal and beliefs we are brought up with and then adopt as our own. And of course we adopt such beliefs because of our own lack of self-worth. Just like you and many thousands more who have attended workshops by Serge Benhyon, we are all finding that the love we have been truly seeking is the love that resides within.

Hi Gyl I agree with what you share in your blog there is a lot of pressure in society to be in a relationship and it’s
often regarded as abnormal to be single. However, I’ve noticed that the trend is changing and recent Disney films are dispelling the myths – in Frozen the Prince turns out to be a baddie and the Princess is rescued by the love of her sister and in Into The Woods Prince Charming outs himself by stating ‘I was brought up to be Charming not sincere’ !
I find it refreshing that these films are challenging the norm and providing a different
kind of role model for kids. Currently the film studios are re-visiting a lot of the old fairy tales and re-writing them for
the 21st Century, I look forward to seeing what other truths will be revealed…..

A beautiful blog Gyl, if everyone becomes the amazing one she or he is, irrespective of being with a partner or not, and when kids will grow up with living examples like this (like you) it will change the world. I feel the absolut same purpose and challenge you are writing about, although I have a partner. When women and men stop acting on the beliefs they were grown up with and start to accept the beautiful ones they already are inside, it will come true to live fulfilled as a single and to life fulfilled as a couple. To have true relationships in general irrespective of having a partner or not. I realize since I am learning to live this way through the presentations, teachings and living example of Serge Benhayon and his family, that what I was always searching for in relationships is inside me and therefore possible to be lived with “everyone” – what a revolution is that for me.

All of us in this world, are raised in an an ocean of myths – stories of how we ought to be, and what we need to aspire to in life. They are as ubiquitous and as invisible to us as the air we breathe – until we open the eyes of our heart. These myths penetrate every aspect of human life: how we should look, speak, behave, think, what house to live in etc, etc. The myths themselves are not identical. They may vary with our location around the world and even within a single city. This variation makes us believe that the myths are somehow valid, but we do not perceive that they are coming from a single source, a way of thinking that gives us no latitude to simply be ourselves.
The need to be with a partner is myth that has very little cultural/geographic variance. It exists everywhere, so no doubt there are young Eskimo women fielding the same questions! Quite a distraction from looking into the eyes of the woman in question and feeling their depth, looking at the quality of the way she lives, and feeling her completeness.
Recently I was questioned on why I was single and childless, like it was a bizarre thing. How interesting that this question was posed under a photograph of me on a social media site, looking as complete, and full of love as I have ever been in this life. Such is the power of the myth – we cannot see what is right before our eyes.

Brilliant Rachel – I love your opening line “All of us in this world, are raised in an ocean of myths – stories of how we ought to be, and what we need to aspire to in life.” So sad but true.
And in relation to your amazingly beautiful reflection being questioned – ‘Seeing is in the eye of the beholder’.

This is so profound yet very simple when put like this Rachel – “They are as ubiquitous and as invisible to us as the air we breathe – until we open the eyes of our heart.” I know this feeling well, of going along believing that the decisions I am making around parenting or being in relationships with others are mine, and then realising that these pictures are not even real or from my heart. Being honest about what myths are there feels like a fog lifts and the true beauty of my expression returns.

I like your ocean of myths, it so accurately describes the rubbish we are meant to be according to others? Who was it that decided for us how we should live our life’s? It has been said love concurs all… true self-love removes the fog of what others insist we should be.

I agree Rachel, how can the amazingness you so obviously have embodied be questioned? The consciousness is so heavy that even when the truth is presented to us in the clear light of day we still question it…are we really that blind?

Yes and the myth being that to be beautiful and complete we must be married with children.
Oh my GOODness the ideas we get? You Rachel Mascord are living proof that this is a MYTH.
Single women in the world without children often bring us a clarity and quality of true care and observation so many parents attached to their role, do not.

I am married and before that was in serial relationships from my mid teens and can very much relate to how it was possible to cover over my lack of self worth by being in a relationship. So it’s clearly true to me that whether we are in an intimate relationship or not, what we have been fed – “All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman”, keep the lack of self worth alive. It is a very horrible setup, but one we can slowly change by realising our own inner essence and reclaiming our self-worth.

I agree Kristy, I am single and prefer it that way rather than be in an unloving relationship. I am working on building a loving relationship with myself and if someone comes along, then the love that I have for myself can be shared, with no settling for less. Being in a loving relationship can be beautiful and having a loving relationship with ourselves can be beautiful, either way it is loving to just BE LOVE.

Beautiful Gyl. I am single and I have found in the past a lot of people go into sympathy for me because I’m single. There is the attitude of “don’t worry, you’ll find someone”. In recent years (I too have healed in a similar way to you) I have found it amusing that others are sad that I don’t have a partner. When I let them know how I feel about it – that I enjoy being with me first and foremost, that I’d been happy to have a man be part of my life, that I am more than ok without one, that I’d prefer to be on my own than in an ok relationship and that I won’t settle for anything less than evolutionary, they actually find it a bit confronting.

Your comment “Was it a need for security rather than to stand tall on my own?” is very powerful. I have often wanted to be in a relationship in the past so that I had an excuse not to stand tall. I would crumble for whatever reason when in a relationship and indulge in the “security” of a man. I realise now that it is rubbish and that I can stand tall and be in a relationship, but it is a powerful momentum I have behind me of becoming less in a relationship.

Beautifully honest Nikki and yes I can relate very much to this. In fact i would choose specifically men that were not going to support me to stand tall. It is a well worn momentum but one that diminishes the more I stand tall within myself.

I love your blog Gyl, it reminds me of how I felt and what I believed prior to Universal Medicine about being single and looking for love. I remember when I was single, I had thoughts too that left me feeling I wasn’t enough and the way to fill my feelings of emptiness was to search for love outside of myself to fill it. Even when I found something amazing, after a short while that feeling of emptiness creeps back in, then I go onto searching for something else to try and fill that emptiness again. It goes on and on with me constantly searching for love outside of myself. Now, I realised what I was searching for had always been within me, the love was patiently waiting to be discover from within and now all the ideals and belifs around who I am and who I should be have started to fall away. I am developing a deeper relationship with myself, appreciating the love I am and learning to express and share this with the world. This is incredibly empowering to finally stop the never ending search and to live all that I already hold from within, Love.

The kernel of truth that the love we are looking for outside of ourselves is within, shines again in your sharing Gyl. I have just the impact it may have if all the fairytales etc., were re told with this truth added! Coupling up would then be a sharing of this naturally, already known love. Imagine that! The world would change overnight! Thank you Gyl,

Hear hear Gyl, thank you for bringing to light the truth of being single or not. I recall all too well the elation of feeling of ‘honeymoon’ phase of a new relationship, as directly pertaining to the man, not once considering the feelings as coming from me, or even are me. The pressure from society, from family, and from ourselves, to be in and stay in a relationship is completely out of control. When in truth no one can possibly give to us what we already are, it is for us to connect or reconnect, to the Love we are, then from there its taken with us wherever we go, and whom ever we meet.

Great sharing Gyl, I am single at the age of 36 and I can relate to everything you write and know the questions well. The pressure from others or even the expectation is huge but I have an understanding that so many of us are caught up in ideals and beliefs that we are not even aware of so I accept the questions when they come and know that I am single because of choices I make. In the past I would settle and be in a relationship even if it didn’t feel right just so I was not alone. These days I prefer to be living on my own than to be in a relationship just for the sake of it.

When I was younger, I experienced these kinds of questions too Gyl…why are you single, an attractive girl like you single, etc, etc during times when I didn’t have a partner. And then it seemed to stop. Once I hit my mid-forties, people stopped asking me. Is this because they could tell that having children was no longer on the cards and therefore it didn’t matter so much?

The beliefs and ideals we are fed from the day we are born are massive and feel as though they serve only one purpose: to prevent us from connecting to who we truly are. Knowing from my own experience growing up with all those expectations of how to be as a woman and how the perfect man has to be, and working with teenagers on gender stereotypes and ideals and beliefs, – I always asked myself why are we so easily lured into those abusing patterns and why are we not connecting to our divine essence (the love we naturally are) and stopping this game we are playing over and over again. We all have this truth inside of us and in this regard all have the ability to know who we are, we often choose not to feel it. I never could figure out why everybody would fall for it, dedicated political activists, feminist, lefties, etc. At the end of the day the massive life trap were the beliefs and ideals nobody could really escape, and the response was conforming or lifetime rebellion which is simply a different color of the same idealistic poison. What I discovered more and more about many of these ideals was related to the disconnection from our bodies, and with Universal Medicine I finally got the missing link: We have a Soul (www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-soul.html) and a spirit (www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-spirit.html) and everything is energy (www.unimedliving.com/voice/audio-of-the-month/everything-is-because-of-energy-2015-08.html)!!! What a revelation and what a joy to truly face the world of creation that is feeding many of these beliefs!

Gyl I was thinking about being single the other day so your article is amazing gold for me.

In the last few years I’ve hidden behind a relationship and when asked about why didn’t I have children I felt a relief that at least I could say I was in a relationship and wouldn’t be considered too strange or even threatening (like I would be interested in other women’s husbands!)

So when I thought about being single the other day I realised I’ve had to be more responsible for myself and not use others as crutches. I felt how I’d not loved myself fully – always waiting to be loved which I know to be rubbish but it’s still something I use to escape not fully being with myself and choosing to love me. Your article’s reminded me there is nothing wrong with me and what an amazing opportunity I have to build a relationship with myself.

Thank you for writing this beautiful blog Gyl. I can feel there has been a huge turnaround in your life and the relationship you have with being single. The search for prince charming is something many women buy in to and I can still feel the hooks of this in me. Your words “Was it easier than accepting the powerful and amazing woman I am – and to live this – whether I am with someone or not?” allow me to feel that I know the prince charming story is a myth, The only thing I need to do to discover true love is feel the truth that it is inside me.

Hi Gyl, what a beautiful, radiant and wise woman you are. I have been pondering recently and went back to when I was bullied at school a long time ago. I had a girlfriend a few years later who said she loved me and I chose not to believe her. My lack of self worth was so low I chose to believe that I was actually tricking her into believing I was worthy. It hurt so much I have never been back there since.
I am sixty five, I have a lot of ideals and beliefs to overcome but I’m working on it and reading your blog this morning gave me clarity. Thank you.

Thank you Gyl for exposing the pressure girls and women endure to have to be a certain way, to fit into the ideals and believes, all created and conditioned for us to follow. They are drummed into to us from a very young age from all angles to ensure that we never get close to experience the power and love we hold from within. Everything seems to be geared to take us furthest away from this as possible, mostly we choose to accept and follow. It is empowering when we choose to wake up from this illusion, to realise what we’ve accepted was not truth or love and that there is another way. The teachings of Universal Medicine inspires us to step out of our self-created illusions and step into a true way of living from our essence. To accept who we are and discover the loving light we each hold from within is already very powerful and divine, and we can choose to connect to this at any time.

Thanks for sharing Gyl. I’ve experienced all of the above when being asked whether I am in a relationship or a have a ‘special someone’. I’m 34, and have been single pretty much my whole life bar 5 years with the one person. I’m so used to being the ‘single’ one, although, there is a big part of me that feels as though this shouldn’t be the case. I have this idea that because I am a ‘good’ person, then I deserve to have the love of someone else. But the more I learn through attending Universal Medicine events and courses, the more I realise that it’s ok to want to be in a relatioship, in fact we’re designed to be, but first learn to love yousrelf so that when you meet someone you’re ready to bring all of you, and not just a 50% version of yourself that demands to be filled up by the other.

I had fallen for these ideals hook, line and sinker! I had a baby at 24 years old with no partner and have raised my son as a single parent ever since. I could always feel how much I had gone against the grain, having a baby, not married and still single, and how this affected others probably more than it did me. And because of other people’s reactions, I let myself get hooked into the ideals of where I should be and how my life should look, conveniently feeding the thoughts that told me I wasn’t good enough, that my son was missing out and that I had not only failed as a mother but also as a woman. But now, through the support of Universal Medicine and Esoteric Women’s Health, this is no longer my running commentary. My son is nearly 14 years old and he is super steady, expressive and responsible. I know myself more than I ever have and I know for sure that my worth is not based on whether I have a partner or whether my life looks conventional to appease others comfortability…it is actually based on the loving relationship I have with myself, the one that knows the depth of love that I bring to my son and to everyone because that same love is already in me. Living a life that is full from the inside out is far more fulfilling than forever chasing the elusive ideal that goes nowhere in the end and leaves a shell of emptiness at the end of every day.

This is beautiful blog Gyl that probably every woman and man in our society can relate to in some way. The media, with all it’s happy endings and boy meets girl storys, creates such a need in people to ‘find the one’, and I remember having the same desire to meet my prince charming before I even hit puberty. It’s so backwards because it turns out I am the love of my life, I just didn’t realise that I should have been looking inside and cherising myself instead seeking outside to find it.

Gyl what you have shared needs to be in every women’s magazine as it is much a strongly held picture in our society. It was a picture I definitely held when I was younger. The interesting thing is despite being married with kids for 34 years, I now feel the truth of what you have shared and can celebrate my single friends without placing any preconceived pictures or judgments on being single that I used to hold.

Yes the world is definitely set up in way for us to think there’s something wrong with us if we haven’t ticked all the boxes by a certain age. I know I haven’t and for quite some time felt that external pressure. For all around the only true support in not continuing to subscribe to these beliefs was with Serge Benhayon, Natalie Benhayon who offered unlimited understanding and support in there presentations of relationships and women’s health. Absolutely beautiful.

Gyl What you share is so foundationally supportive to understand how we really feel about ourselves from deep inside. Your statement ‘these are not my thoughts” is very powerful. So many do or have taken on the thoughts of what, how we should be living, and to feel that behind it all is a belief we as women are on this earth to meet a man and have children. This is a very limiting confined box to fit in. Outside this box we have such expansive choices for discovering and connecting to who we truly are. Perhaps this innate power within us scares others in their comfortable safe box.

I have come to realise through my association with Universal Medicine that being single or relationship is not the answer to being ‘happy’. It is about knowing, understanding accepting and appreciating our own self worth and being able to be who we truly are in all we do and express whoever or wherever we are. With this knowing of ourself it is easier to understand others and we are not likely to fall into trying to change them or change our own values and then there is the possibility (but not the need) of developing a true relationship based on acceptance and honesty and not on the false ideals and beliefs we have been fed since our childhood.

Thank you Gyl for another great blog, examining the thoughts and images we take on about being single. There have been quite a few blogs from women about this and I wonder why none from men? I get it may not be considered quite as socially unacceptable for men to be single, yet I feel it does play out the same for men and perhaps women are just more honest about it and able to talk about it. Anyhow I have a female friend who is going through the age of being too late for bearing children and giving up on herself as a mother and equating this with her image as a woman. I like how you have simply expressed how these powerful thoughts and images are not our own and feel this is great to share.

And a great reminder here again as you expressed from Gyl’s blog, Simon, that these thoughts and images are not our own – this is such an important realisation to keep being reminded about, because then we can choose much better what we will align with – and these thoughts and images are truly not something that we want to be running the show…

Yes indeed Karina, a great reminder from Gyl’s blog about these thoughts not being our own. Knowing that we actually do have a choice in what we think moment by moment is very empowering and part of our loving responsibility to choose as best we can, our own thoughts, much more in the direction of love and care for all.

Gyl that is a powerful article indeed and one that should be published in every womens magazine. So much of womens time, emotions., money,energy and self worth is caught up in the pursuit of a relationship and as you say society judges women on whether they are in a relationship or not. We make assumptions about women who are single and/or not mothers. It’s a heavy package that needs to be dismantled as it currently has a strangle hold over 99% of the women in this world. I would urge you to approach magazines with your article it has the power to dismantle myths.

It is amazing how much energy can be invested when you are single into wanting not to be single – I know because I was one of them until the past couple of years where I have shifted this thanks to Universal Medicine and Esoteric Women’s Health. I spent a large part of my 30’s being single, watching most of my friends marry and have children which devastated me at the time. I thought that I was missing out and that I would be left on the shelf so to speak. Now I embrace my single status, seeing it as a time of grace to truly deepen my own relationship with myself knowing that when I do enter into a relationship again, it will be very different because I won’t have the expectations of the relationship to make me feel complete, because I am working on feeling that within myself.

I love your words “my single status, seeing it as a time of grace to truly deepen my own relationship with myself”. No matter if we have a partner or not, we can celebrate ourselves every day – for just being me.

Awesome article Gyl that absolutely exposes the ideals and beliefs so many of us have held around what it is to be single. I know when I was a single woman I would often measure my worth on the fact that if no one loved me (as in a romantic relationship) I must be unloveable, not pretty enough, or somehow at fault. Even within relationships I would feel this lack of self-worth play out. What I have begun to learn and recognise is that our worth and value can never come from outside of us, it comes from within, seeing that in fact all the love we ever need exists within our own heart. It is a beautiful revelation that confirms us everyday if we choose to see it, feel it and live it.

Really beautiful Gyl. I can relate to this a tonne. I still have the ideal of ‘finding the one’ and being in a relationship to fit into a picture… Life feeds us these images and we choose to get caught up in them until they become so ingrained that we just think it’s the norm and miss out on enjoying who we truly are in search of something else.

Yes Emily, we are feed these images and then get lost in living up to them when they are not supportive or loving or even real. I wonder if this contributes to the huge number of couples going through divorce. Imagine how amazing it would be if before you started a relationship with anyone you sat down and talked about all the pictures that are there and see them for what they are and then let them go.

I’m with you there Emily, I still have that ideal too, that I may ‘find the One’. I know in my heart that this is not true as we are all ‘the One’, but these ideals and beliefs are deeply ingrained and it is a constant battle to overcome these thoughts that I know aren’t me, because I know that when I have felt that loving connection with myself then any thoughts or desires for a relationship do not exist anymore because being me is more than enough.

Not only do films, magazines and fairy tails etc tell stories of women being saved by her prince, but also instill how a woman should be in that relationship. They focus on her outer appearance and what she gets done in a day. They celebrate when a women thinks of and puts everybody before herself.
Through the teachings of Esoteric Women’s Health I have come to understand that it is not what or how much a woman does that matters, but how she is while she does what she does (is it done in a hurry with resentment, or in a harmonious way with love and presence?) I have also learned that as women we have to first love and care for ourselves before we can truly love and care for others. That is what should be shouted from the rooftops and taught to every young girl – not that they need to find a man to make them feel worthy.

‘These are not my thoughts’. Quite right, Gyl. All these ideas about love in our lives only coming from meeting it in an outside source are fed to us from a world that has spent aeons inculcating in the next generation of men and women the belief that they are nothing when not in a partnership. Being single is not a transitionary phase between an old and a new partner, nor a status of failure or of ‘resting’. It’s just where we find ourselves. No more, no less. It’s also a great juncture from which to appreciate that all the love we will ever need is already within us. We’re more than enough already. Taking that into any new relationship is the most loving thing we can do.

Thank you Gyl for this powerful blog. It is true that the messages that we are sending the world, that we are not complete unless we are in a relationship someone else, are completely dis-empowering, dis-honoring of the power that we are when we are connected to our essence, our love within. You are a testament of this power of love within claimed through the magnificence of your smile in your photo and through the power of the words you write. Thank you again Gyl for standing strong in true love and in doing so breaking this undermining cycle.

“Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not.”
– Gyl thank you for sharing ideals and beliefs around being single and how this unfortunately sets up young woman to feel lesser. How different would it be if we were taught from young that we are all divinely beautiful and come from love.

Indeed Fiona, This is not just about woman this is about us all, equally, no matter who and what gender we are. The impositions and lies we are fed which stop us knowing our truth are deeply insidious and harmful, though dressed up in sugar sweet coating to please the eye and be appealing.

Gorgeous blog Gyl and powerfully delivered. Love the honesty and the way you have questioned why, and kept looking deeper within searching for the answer…which is the joy and love you already are, and which can clearly be felt in your writing 🙂

“Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not.” I agree with you, Gyl, it is awful how women from a very early age are set up to believe that they are not whole or important or fulfilled, etc., unless they are living with a man. When you look at it like that it is crazy. And how down-putting it is of all women. It is no wonder so many of us feel that we are not good enough, and have a very low feeling of self worth etc. How beautiful it is to be with a woman who has discovered otherwise, found the love that she is within, and totally claimed herself. There is no boundary then to just what she can be and achieve in her life. It is time for all those who have discovered who they truly are to stand up and show other women that they no longer need to believe what society has been showing them for so long, but that there is another totally different way to be.

Thanks Gyl, I really enjoyed reading this blog. You’ve described so beautifully the most important relationship of all, that with self. How lovely it is to finally realise in life that the knight in shining golden armour is actually ourselves, and has been with us all along. Thankyou Gyl for this beautiful reminder that the love we’ve all been looking for is actually inside, and thankyou Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for reminding humanity.

I can so relate to what you share here Gyl…all the ideals and beliefs that we take on and or that are imposed upon us. I have had what many would consider long periods of being single, and they have been some of the best times in my life…spending time with me, being able to re-gather myself, although there was still the feeling of all those underlying ideals and beliefs. But since attending Universal Medicine presentations, the dis-ease I felt when single has now gone…I am far more comfortable in my own skin so to speak, knowing the only person who can love me in the way I want to be loved – is me, and that love is already within me – and has been all along just waiting for me to re-connect to it.

Great Blog Gyl – for all women. I love what you say here – “that these are not my thoughts!” – how many times do we take on an ideal or belief and think that it is us who are thinking those thoughts… It is deeply empowering to realise that ‘these are not my thoughts’

I love that quote too Jane. Sometimes I am plagued with thoughts, like someone has turned a radio on in my head. Some are completely random and irrelevant to the moment, some seek to distract me from my feelings, some try to pull me in different confusing directions. Through the teachings of Universal Medicine I have come to the vastly relieving truth ‘these are not my thoughts”, and that my true thoughts/impulses come from my body in clear, succinct, relevant, loving and serving ways only.

Yes, Jane. What does it take for us to realise that what influences our choices is often not from our own inner truth but from beliefs and ideals that we have accepted as the norm? This blog exposes one of the big trains of thought that keep us disempowered and completely dishonouring of what we bring to the world.

I know I have taken on many ideals and beliefs and never gave it a “thought” as to where they came from, asked why am I thinking that or are they even true? I agree Jane when we start realising that our thoughts are not our own is very empowering.

There’s so much pressure on women, and men, to be married and have children, and this pushes many into a relationship they don’t want/need/are not ready for. Being single is not an issue, but when we don’t know who we truly are in essence, whatever the relationship status might be – then it is an issue.

Yes so true Fumiyo, there is so much pressure on women and men who are single, to be in a relationship, and then the pressure when you are in a relationship to take it to the next level of getting married and having children. This is of course fine if this is something both in the relationship feel to do. My husband and I were hounded by those around us when we moved in together, when we were going to get engaged, because this is another picture and ideal out there, that you shouldn’t live together if you are not married. Its like many relationships are not developing and unfolding with love but from need, expectations and making others happy. Great topic to discuss.

Thank you Gyl. This is something I’ve also had to work through and it feels so incredibly freeing when you stop looking for a relationship to make you feel enough. Incredible how our ideals around relationship put so much pressure on finding this one person to completely fulfil you. Not only does it set us up to fail in our relationships but it also means we’re closing ourself off from loving the rest of humanity.

This is very true Alison, ‘Not only does it set us up to fail in our relationships but it also means we’re closing ourself off from loving the rest of humanity.’ Being on the endless search for mr.right and this being the focus, stops us focussing on loving ourselves and everyone else, the search for mr.right stops us simply being and enjoying our amazing selves, knowing that we are already enough, being confident in ourselves just as we are and living in our fullness whether with a partner or not.

Gyl, I agree it is such a trap to think that we as women are incomplete without a partner. To truly live the amazingness we are, to appreciate the power we bring as woman and to support each other in this way and in our expression as women can be our normal when we choose it. I agree letting go off all the ideals and beliefs is very powerful.

So true Gyl Rae, that the thoughts we have about ourselves are not us, they are the images of how we should look like to fit in the ideals and beliefs society is living in general. And in order to be part of that we feel that we have to behave and be in a certain way that is dictated by society, keeping everything safe and understandable. If we start living from our inner heart and the impulses from there, we will reflect another way of living that, at some stages will be uncomfortable for our societies to cope with as it does not fit in the general understanding of how life should be. But it is so needed that we start to live our lives, free from the images that are fed to us, as this will bring back how it is to live as free humans in our societies allowing to live all the individual expression in its Divine quality.

If the Universal truth that “the love I had been looking for all along is actually inside of me” – became known to all, then the world would begin to heal from many of its woes. Gyl, and the many others who have come to know and live by this truth under the inspiration of Universal Medicine and the Ageless Wisdom are testament to the dramatic changes that could take place. Great blog Gyl, thanks for sharing.

There are so many ideals about being in a relationship, and I feel they all come from the lack of love for myself. When I am truly in connection with myself, the thoughts and ideals about all those things stop, because there isn’t anything that needs to change to be more me or feel loved. Because all is already there.

I agree Benkt, the want or need for a relationship only comes from the lack of connection and love for ourselves. Again, looking on the outside to give us the love that we already hold within. Most of my past relationships have been based on physical attraction and neediness, and I know that this is not true love. True love comes from within and if we connect to that then this can be shared with another, and then all relationships become truly loving relationships, without neediness.

In my case as well Sandra – my past relationships were based on my neediness. At the moment I’m single and the first time in my life, I actually enjoy being single. I feel complete – that feels awesome.

Gyl is very gorgeous in how she writes about being a single woman today, which is perhaps not that different to how it has been for many centuries, with women always been expected to be in relationship with a partner and her children first before she is in a relationship with herself.

With the emptiness of lack of self-worth we so often seek another to fill the void and succumb to all the pressures, and accepted beliefs that to be fulfilled as a woman you must want to be married and have children. If true love of yourself is not felt then the emptiness of lack of self-worth can escalate if you tick the boxes of those beliefs and still feel lonely and this reinforces the thoughts that there must be something wrong with you. Letting go of the crippling ideals and beliefs that are fed from all directions and knowing the beauty and love you already are is freedom to be you.

Great to expose so many of the ideals and beliefs thrust upon both women and men when it comes to how life is meant to look when you are an adult. I remember a family member who would ask me from the age of 15 ‘when are you getting married?’ It used to make me feel so uncomfortable, it was the last thing I was thinking about at that age. I can see now just how much this way of thinking infiltrates into so many relationships, whether our own relationship with ourselves or others.

These beliefs weave their way into all parts of society without us even realising. The messages are everywhere, feeding us expectations about who we need to be. It’s actually very insidious when you put it under the microscope!

Gyl you are indeed a very beautiful and powerful woman and what you share here is awesome because it is breaking down the ideals and beliefs of what it is to be a woman. Two very pertinent points for me were “Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not” – Women fully claimed and in their essence have the power to turn the world on its head – and “The more I have allowed myself to feel and see, the more I have come to realise just how sneaky and undermining these thoughts, ideals, pictures and beliefs can be”. I know from experience that I have been half aware of the insidious thoughts and reactions I have allowed in my body and how crippling they are to becoming fully claimed in my essence. When we become fully aware of them then it is much easier to make different choices as we are less owned by them.

Great piece of writing, Gyl, and a topic worthy of much discussion. It illustrates so well how in so many ways society is structured and supports us to look externally for recognition and love rather than within, which does not lead to love and harmony but to the opposite.

Very interesting point Gyl why do we accept these messages from the world when we actually know they do not feel true or correct and in many ways are abusive? Why do we prefer to live in misery and a mere shadow of ourselves rather than with the joy and vitality of living who we really are? Maybe it is easier to blend in than stand out?

Well said Andrew. There is an awful lot of people in the world that choose misery, comfort, contraction or exhaustion rather than joy in their lives, but would you want to stand out as super content with 7 billion others around you looking confused at why you aren’t feeling the same sadness? We need to take this step and inspire others that joy is the new normal, not misery.

I feel what you have expressed so well here Gyl could be applied equally whether you have a partner or not. Even when you have a partner it is no easy ride. There are another whole set or ideals and beliefs out there about what that relationship should look like and function like, who you should be with/not be with etc. It feels to me whether you are in ‘a relationship’ or not it feels important to not rely on information from outside but to trust our inner knowing and awareness. To not need a relationship but to have the self worth to know that you are enough as you are without the relationship.

We are all always in a relationship with someone (unless we are hermit in a cave somewhere!) All our relationships whether they be partners or friends or relatives can be very confirming but the key here is in the word confirmation which means that we get a reflection to confirm something we have already felt for ourselves. This is very different from recognition when we are looking for someone to fulfil us from a need. So in a sense we are already complete in our knowing of who we are and what we bring but we can get reflections confirming who we are which are supportive but perhaps not compulsory.

I agree Gyl there is this pressure on women to be in relationship and even though I am married now, I remember my late mother wanting me desperately to get back with my ex-husband when we split up – so it seemed at the time that even if the relationship was abusive, it looked better to others that I was married and not single. I can’t blame my mother because that’s how she was brought up and to her being married, no matter what and having children was the woman’s role. I would like to say things have changed, but from what you’re saying it hasn’t.

Gosh, yes we have evolved since then thank goodness! Those days of old when it was an absolute shame to be a spinster or worse a single mother! What we as both men and woman would put up with to avoid this shame – abuse and a loveless marriage. We are changing albeit slowly, for those of us who are truly joyful being single it’s time to stand up and claim this fact to pave a new way for us all, just as Gyl has done.

I love this blog Gyl. It is a real claiming of the fact that women do have a choice to be in a relationship or not, and can be happy either way. It is common for people to look at a single woman and think ‘nobody wants her’, without even considering that she may be choosing this for herself.

Aah this is a good one being single – but why? I used to think that as well and the whole comparison issues ran strong. Universal Medicine has been the only organisation that I have come across that exposing this for what it is. A Lack of Self-Love and Self-Acceptance and the searching for this elsewhere other than the ultimate source within ourselves. I have totally enjoyed embracing this relationship with myself and know that this is who I take to all of my relationship.

Hallelujah to the single woman! Your sharing is completely relatable Gyl. Its like I have some sort of contagious illness because I do not have a partner or kids. It is a major process for people to assimilate or understand this choice. I have come to know that love is found within me and not outside of me which i am so appreciative of reconnecting to again.

I agree Marcia, and as someone who has also been a single and childless woman in her forties I have seen peoples faces in sympathy, which if I hold my true sense of self, that being me is a wonderful experience regardless of husband/children et al, I notice their expressions can change to one of curiosity – like their deeply held ideals and beliefs are actually exposed in that moment.

I agree, you’re almost treated like some sort of terminally ill person, and the older you are as a single person, the worse the stigma. And then there is the stigma around single women trying to make it an empowering thing, with many men and woman clinging to the sexist view that these women are somehow sad, lonely old spinsters, rather than equally happy and health people who have simply made a personal choice about their lifestyle, no different to the kind of grocery brands a person prefers to buy.

Haha this made me laugh out loud Marcia! It’s so true the way society views women who are single – with sympathy that they are missing something, and must be very lonely. I have noticed how as I have become more steady and embracing of myself as a single woman – not needing any partner to be complete – that this does arise discomfort and discombobulation in those around me. What I have discovered over my years of work with Universal Medicine and the teachings of the Ageless wisdom is how much I have been invested in finding a partner this life, and for me that was a form of escapism in not wanting to stand fully as the powerful woman I am. My lack of self worth had me searching anywhere for someone to give it to me, instead of developing a deep foundation of love for myself. Serge and Natalie Benhayon have been huge supports for me in re-developing this love, so I cannot thank them enough. Thank you Gyl for this blog, you are absolutely gorgeous and a thorough inspiration.

I used to work with African ladies where the belief that you must marry and have children because that is what is said in the bible, was so strong that those who didn’t, were rejected by their families and society. Beliefs and ideals can be harmful beyond comprehension and absolutely deny the lessons that can be learnt without a partner and the depth of relationship that can be had with oneself.

I agree Sam, the depth of relationship that we can have with ourselves must be the most important relationship of all, dedicated to loving and evolving ourselves. Knowing and loving ourselves deeply then offers those we are in relationship with, be it friendship or otherwise, an opportunity for a true relationship, not based on hurts, but based on each having a strong sense of deepening self-worth and a desire to evolve together.

I can very much relate to what you have written Gyl – from a very young age, around 12 or 13, my family would ask me when I saw them or spoke to them over the phone if I had a boyfriend, and it somehow felt like I was letting them down to say no. Even though I am not yet in my twenties, I still get ask all the time why I nice girl like me doesn’t have a boyfriend, or that there should be a queue of boys wanting to go out with me, which makes me feel that something isn’t right because I don’t have one. There are then my friends trying to introduce me to people, or get me to ask for a guys phone number – its a constant pressure to fix the problem of being single by dating anyone. I often find the people around me seem more desperate for me to find a boyfriend then i do at times! Why does our society leave people feeling so uncomfortable about being single, or seeing single people. When I hang round my friends, one is single and one isn’t and yet to me neither feels any more or less. Perhaps our relationship status should not be the most important thing we focus on, but instead look at the quality of our relationship with ourselves first, and then the quality of relationship we have with another.

Beautifully revealed Rebecca, I feel your last line – ‘Perhaps our relationship status should not be the most important thing we focus on, but instead look at the quality of our relationship with ourselves first, and then the quality of relationship we have with another.’ Sums up that if we all concentrated on this as our responsibility there would be many more harmonious relationships in the world and not just arrangements to fill the emptiness that we feel.

I agree Susan, with the rates of domestic violence and divorces the way they are, we seriously need to look at the way we go about developing relationships, and the kind of relationship we are willing to enter into simply to say we have one.

I agree Rebecca; the focus has to be on our relationship with ourselves first and foremost. This is something that parents ought to be teaching their children rather than pressuring them into relationships that they are not equipped to handle.

SO many similarities Rebecca, especially the “boys in a queue” for me they say “girls in a queue”. I’ve always been not really sure how to answer the question. It feels as if it is just a line, to generate some sort of response. Or maybe they are trying to say how wonderful we look? I don’t know but being single is pretty good, I’ve never really been in a relationship so I wouldn’t know haha.

Rebecca, I so love what you say above. I really wish I had had your insights when I was your age because I felt pressured in exactly the same way (I went to an all girls school and believe me the pressure to have a boyfriend there is truly intense!). I spent all of my teenage years and most of my 20s feeling inadequate because I never had a long term relationship. I was perceived as less and perceived myself as less as a result. I remember time and again being put down by other women because I was single. What a crazy imposition to put on anyone! I totally agree with you – our first relationship is with ourselves and should be our first priority.

Thank you Rebecca for sharing. Could it be that they feel uncomfortable in the fact that you are claimed in who you are and not actually needing a boyfriend to feel complete? Time to call out that consciousness that takes us away from love – even if it is just to yourself.

This is spot on Rebecca the amount of energy and focus put into people’s relationships whether that be the single person or the friend/family – if they were all to bring that focus to themselves and their quality of this relationship I’m sure a deeper level of Self Love and Acceptance would change their views that they are not complete without a partner.

Gyl I remember the pressure I was under before I was even twenty – family would ask if I had a boyfriend as a matter of course, so much so that I began to feel something was wrong with me … it just undermined my self-worth. I grew up on Hollywood movies from the 40’s and 50’s and in a society that described the single woman as a spinster and looked upon her with some pity. It is wonderful to see more young women knowing their value and not rushing into relationships just to fulfill some ideal that comes from who knows where originally!

The realisation that these thoughts, ideals and beliefs are not ours, but have been fed into us from the cradle, and remain with us until the grave unless we meet with the truth of who we are. Like you Gyl, finding Love within myself through the teachings of Universal Medicine was instrumental in my letting go of so many of these false and debilitating myths. All power to all women who take the same steps and how awesome that our numbers are growing.

To have Universal Medicine reflecting and confirming that all these ideals and beliefs that we take on since birth are not who we are has been a huge revelation. Until we understand and know this truth we will be forever at the mercy of our negative thoughts.

Gyl, you are so gorgeous. This blog shines so brightly with your loveliness and no wonder, if you have got rid of all that “stuff” – the old ideals and beliefs that are not you – there is so much more of you to shine! Thank you for this sharing. It offers a huge healing through the truth you present.

Thank you for writing this Gyl and highlighting the ideals and beliefs that abound around a woman being single. After my divorce I actually got comments like this – “don’t you want a father at home with your children?” or “you must be lonely on your own with the kids”, etc. We are never incomplete because we are single, we are always enough because we are Love. Making time to greatly care, love and appreciate ourselves first and then take that into all our other relationships is the way I now choose too.

I was stopped by these words Shelley and read them several times, taking in the wisdom that you share: “We are never incomplete because we are single, we are always enough because we are Love.” I know that I will be sharing this truth with my granddaughters as they grow into womanhood, as I know that I would have loved to have had them shared with me; and if they had been, how very different my life would have been.

Ahhhh… those pesky thoughts that as you say Gyl are fed to us from a young age, to ensure us being us is not enough. It is no wonder relationships struggle at times as they are based on a need and emptiness and not the truth of two people coming together solid in who they are.

‘Was it easier to need to be in a relationship and be with a man than to feel my own lack of self-worth?’
Absolutely – we can gain great distraction in relationships with the chase for attention. Someone once told me that being single is a time of grace – where you can really get to know you before sharing that with another.

What a blessing to hear that Rachael. I so agree! Chasing relationships or someone to have as a partner can be a great distraction for getting to know ourselves, and hence presenting our true selves in a relationship when it is offered.

I agree, we can totally use relationships to distract us from what is really going on for us. The other person can become like a scapegoat for all our problems and feelings of inadequacy. To have a period of grace is a true blessing to really feel who we are and bring that to a potential future relationship is a gift for all and a true way froward for us as a society. To come into a relationship healed and with no neediness and expectations,… how refreshing!

Rachael I really feel time alone is time well spent as long as it’s in honesty with ourselves to develop a relationship and a foundation from which we know ourselves. It is common for us to loose ourselves to pleasing and conforming to someone else’s beliefs and thus we loose sight of our own essence,we can go through life like this but in that there is no honesty in who we are being.

I love this question too. It is absolutely true, we do enter into relationships focusing on everything that is going on around us as a means of distracting ourselves from feeling our own lack of self worth. When we deal with our lack of self worth whether we are in a relationship or single all our relationships are then based on true love and not based on arrangements.

The other day I got the remark that how it was possible that I was living by myself, as in not having a partner/family, while I am such a beautiful woman. Aren’t we all beautiful? That would be the first thing to say. And it shows how many beliefs there are around being single, the way you look, and that it is still seen as ‘not normal’ to live on your own when you are in your forties (looking thirties……).

I agree Mariette, it is almost not in peoples views that a person could choose to live single and truly single without having loads of love affairs. This exposes how much we are focused on our families instead of seeing that everybody we meet is a part of our family.

I could remember that people said the same to me when I was a single and I have to admit that it made me very angry because what they were really saying was that I was not normal to be on my own. It is time to show the world that it is not a tragedy to be a single and that we are all beautiful – so thank you Mariette for doing so.

Is not such beauty of a woman for everyone not just her partner? And is it too confronting for her to simply just enjoy being with her and all her beauty? I celebrate women who have made the choice to claim they are single in this way simply because it is a rich quality of life to feel completely unattached to needing another in your life and when you do eventually meet someone (if life unfolds that way) then there is an amazing foundation of love to bring that other person which is gold.

Beautiful Gyl. Thanks to Universal Medicine I now know that I am a super powerful, amazing, single woman and there is nothing wrong with me. I celebrate this time and space that I have being single to really get to know myself, to deal with the lack of self-worth that has been there and to claim me as a woman. Like you, I used to think that something was wrong with me for being single, I now see it as a time of grace, a time to truly get to know me. I don’t think I will be single forever but I am now embracing this time to deepen my own relationship with myself.

Gyl this is a profound realisation “that these are not my thoughts”. The “I am single, therefore something is wrong with me”run rampant and you exposing that we have been fed these thoughts that they are not real, is very powerful indeed. These thoughts can be debilitating and can occupy so much space in our minds, I know they did for me for a long time. What these thoughts do is take away the space to feel the amazingness of who we are because we are so tied up thinking something is wrong with us. It is a trick indeed to keep us feeling less as women. Thank you for exposing this lie.

You are so right Gyl Rae through children’s books and films girls are constantly bombarded by stories of girls longing and incomplete until they meet their “knight in shining armour”. They do very little to portray the beautiful natural qualities of a woman, immensely strong in her own right and showing it with confidence. No wonder girls grow up with a lack of self worth, and no connection to their sacred glory within. If they do have a lack of self worth the last thing they need is constant heartless comments from friends and family like you have shared Gyl Rae. The strength, warm heartedness, and all the qualities we love in women comes from the woman, it is not given to her by the man when they enter a relationship, so it is ridiculous to think single or partnered women to be any different. I know many single women who are excellent role models, and have a huge love for humanity.

There is such a heavy consciousness around that dictates how we SHOULD be in this world and most go around believing this to be true, completely unaware of the powerful hold it has over us. But we need to question this, is it actually based on truth and love? The truth of life lays within our hearts not anywhere outside ourselves, when we connect to this we can free ourselves from these imposing consciousnesses and be free to live who we truly are and what is true for us.

Gyl, the way you write and share on this comment thread shows how committed you are to being in true relationship. It is clear that you have a loving and expansive relatisonhip with yourself and everyone you interact with is blessed by your gorgeousness and the power of your expression. You show we can be single and at the same time be open, loving, connected and in love with everyone. I can understand why people want to know more about you as you blow apart every fairy tale love myth with your mere presence. I have so much appreciation for you and all you have shared.

It seems we often confuse being single with being alone. What is being expressed here exposes the lie in this. It is so very possible to feel alone whilst in a relationship and experience true togetherness whilst being single. As ever, it is all about our connection to the Love we are within first rather than seeking it in another. In my experience it is only when two people live in connection to the Love they are first that true relationship can happen.

Awesome Richard. ‘it is all about our connection to the Love we are within first rather than seeking it in another’ Then once connected to this we are never alone and always in relationship with the world.

Being in true relationship… absolutely Leonne and Gyl. So many relationships are based on something a woman’s lack of self-worth and subscribing to these ideals that a woman is not enough unless she is in a relationship and with children. How amazing though to be open to a relationship without any of that, not to have any need or longing to have our worth fulfilled by another, having deepened the precious relationship with ourselves first.

It’s true Gyl, everywhere around us in society, and the point driven home in the media and movies, is the representation of man/woman relationships and within that the pressure to be in one. What we need to present to humanity is the very truth of what you offer here Gyl; that women are beautiful and powerful from a deep sense of self-worth without any need to be in a relationship. This true empowerment doesn’t mean we need to be single, it just shows that either way, who we are is what matters above all else and our worth is never to be judged, certainly not by whether we are single, married or otherwise.

I agree Jo our sense of self worth and love for self needs to be a foundation that is with us whether we are in a relationship or not in a relationship. Otherwise we are using something from outside of us to validate our self.

Exactly Jo, claiming us in everything we do or whatever relationship status we are in as the powerful woman. If women would do that, boy oh boy would the world and its problems change …I am looking forward to that !

It is quite clear from what everybody is expressing is that we are caught up at an early age in ideals and beliefs that are handed down to us from our parents because they didn’t know any different. As a young girl you get to a certain age and the questions start from family and friends start. First you had to get and keep a boyfriend, then the questions were when are you getting married, if you got married it was then when are you going to have babies. And I know one father in law who said to his prospective daughter in law. I’ll give you 500.00 pounds if you deliver a boy and 250.00 if its a girl! It’s a bit like being a sausage in a sausage machine, lets stop churning out humans that act more like robots ( we grow up get married have 2.5 kids own a house and a car and go on two holidays a year) and start to ask the question what’s really going on with us.

Girls and boys are both heavily pressured to make choices from impositions rather than from true love, but the pressure is different for boys and it is more socially acceptable for a man to be single. it is even acceptable for a man to be a lone ranger with awkward social skills protecting the community strong, reliant and afraid of nothing (except rejection and his own feelings).

Lovely piece Gyl Rae, I can very much relate about being single. I always looked out to others, tv, movies, magazines and celebrities etc. and sought the picture of having the perfect girlfriend that satisfied me. When I finally ‘got a girlfriend’, and she was everything that I fantasized about — I was like yes I have done it “I am complete”. IT WAS NOT IT .. I soon was diagnosed with my first episode of depression thereafter – I was not living in the essence of me and the relationship with myself was not nurturing and deep appreciation of my natural expression.
When I came to Universal Medicine I was single. I was borderline depression. When I listened to Serge Benhayon I came out of depression immediately – I finally discovered who I was. I now have spent the last 10 years building the worth of who I am from the absolute abuse I was forcing inwards on myself. There is no way I would have done that if I new how sacred I was. I am now in a loving relationship with myself, and this extends to the most amazing wife. My choices are now self-loving and building the love and tenderness of the man I am. You are never single when the relationship of who you are is a relationship with God, your body, and all living beings around you.

This is such a common Scenario Rik. We get what we want and still don’t feel enough, then when will we ever be enough? When we accept we are the Son of God, and then we need nothing but truly have everything because its what we naturally are.

The truth is we are always single in this life. One single person in relationship with the all there is. We come in single and we leave single anything else in between that makes us think we are not is an attachment to an ideal or belief. We are one with the one. There is only one and it’s not me!

Letting go of the picture of being in relationship has been a very significant understanding for me. Each decade I seemed to roll the possibility of “finding the one” into the next decade. Arriving in my 50’s and being single I’ve really been asked to look at what I was holding onto in regard to my relationship position. What I’ve discovered underlying the pictures is that my relationship with myself is THE relationship to be living in full and celebrating with true appreciation every moment. There is nothing greater.

Perfect timing to read this blog Gyl! Life is very much set out that we feel incomplete if we do not have a partner and this is playing out in school playgrounds from a very young age. I remember my son just starting school at the age of 4 and girls had already lined him up to be married to one of them! If we accept this, we are accepting something that is far lesser than who we truly are inside. To know our own self worth and cherish it as somehting very precious is a rarity in this world of ideals and beliefs but it is blogs like these that start to crack them down and we get to feel what is really going on, Thank you.

It’s a great reminder again Gyl where you share about thoughts you have had why you are not in a relationship etc, and to come to the absolute true conclusion: “That these are not my thoughts!” Brings us straight back to the thought monsters again, and the moment they are identified we can choose anew. Awesome blog Gyl, thank you for sharing.

Gyl what you have exposed is a huge healing for the world. Seeking love from the outside is a terrible lie we are conditioned with; the belief that love is attained in this instance by another individual is incredibly imposing on that other person. But more so, it steers us directly away from understanding our most innate truth, that our love is within us – it is expressed in the essence of who we are and it is a a deep well of love we cannot even comprehend how deep it goes. The wild goose chase of so many ideals and beliefs to outwardly seek it leads us to despair, exhaustion, depression, self worth issues, emptiness – the list goes on and on. I have searched for love being brought to me in all my relationships; I have sought to be rescued from all those despairing feelings and I can see how I still impose others with these insidious expectations. Thank you Gyl for deepening my awareness of this in my own life and so I also can share and expose these ideals and beliefs with others to reawaken in them the connection that the love we all seek lies within.

Gina I so agree that the lie we have been fed, and have swallowed, that the love we have been forever seeking is outside of us, is one that has imprisoned humanity for way too long. To finally come to the realisation that this love is, and has always been, within us is love and life changing. It is time for humanity to know the truth!

I lived by myself for nine years, the first four officially in a relationship with my then partner living elsewhere, the last five by myself without a partner. There are times when we are alone and they can be times of tremendous healing. There are also times when we are in relationships. If we are in one situation and want the other, then it is very important to get clear why that is the case and where the need for a change comes from. The more love we have and express, the clearer it becomes whether our choice is the right one.

Well said, Christoph. The more love we have for ourselves the less need we will have for something else to fufill us and the clearer we are about what is true for us. Then every relationship is simply a blessing in our lives.

This is a great point that you make Christoph. What is the reason behind being single or in a relationship? Is the reason true or based on societal expectations or a rebellion of that? Or maybe a hurt that is so strong we need to push people away? Or possibly a need to not be alone? There really are so many factors that can come into play with the decisions we make in life and it is for us to really feel where these are coming from, truth or somewhere else?

Agree completely Christoph, being single offers tremendous opportunity for healing. It certainly has for me over the years. What you say here is very interesting – “The more love we have and express, the clearer it becomes whether our choice is the right one” – and so true because when i look back now and how i lived life , i know that my own lack of self-love always had me in doubt and indecision such that i couldn’t commit. Being in love brings clarity of choice, and in this commitment. Key to any relationship.

There are so many ideals and beliefs in the world, and living unbounded by them is a challenge—to the world! When we choose to walk and breathe the truth from our hearts, these ideals and pictures no longer have power over us anymore. As women, we are deeply precious when we return to the truth within our hearts and bodies, and one woman who begins to live this preciousness is asking the whole world to see their own worth and wake up to that. Thank you Gyl.

Gorgeously expressed Adele. It is so exquisite and inspiring when a woman lives her preciousness as you say… lets her true beauty out, her sweetness and love. It melts people and those beliefs fall to the floor.

The whole world is set up to not allow us to know that we are complete and enough as we are, whether we choose to have a partner or not. As knowing that we are enough because we are this grand and deep love and living that in life, is changing the consciousness of relationships, and returning to the truth that all relationships begin with ourselves. From this foundation, it changes the relationships with the whole world.

I choose to be single because true love is my choice, not lived in perfection of course. Choosing love, I am choosing to be in a relationship that is always growing and evolving us back to a deeper love. Thank you to all women who has walked before me and with me in this knowingness from the heart.

Not needing to be attached to a picture, a person, an ideal is still an investment in relationship when in the heart there are no attachments. The word relationship is already full of invested beliefs, as can the heart be even out of a relationship for even a moment?

Correct! not being needy is also a picture and something I dabbled in for a while after leaving the emotionally needy picture behind .. The truth is that there is no picture at all in true love and true relationship, only a natural flow of life running through our bodies and into our lives with an understanding that there is true harmony to be lived and allowed to flow through all of us in one relationship.

Cherise I simply love the way we support each other to deepen our understanding of life. I didn’t fully get what Adele was saying but then when I read your comment, it clicked in. Pictures are pictures regardless of what they are pictures of. To me it feels similar to being either nice/horrible, they are two sides of the same coin; and being invested in being in a relationship is the the other side of the coin to being invested in not being in a relationship. Oh the trickery of the mind !

Wow, I didn’t even clock that not being needy was also a picture. True, not being in need can be there as long as there is no investment in it. It’s the investment of all kinds that impedes the flow and harmony within our own bodies.

I love this blog—as I read it and am going deeper with it, the knowing of these words “bringing truth back” to one of the most sought after experiences in life, one that the whole world is looking for and are affected by, relationship is possibly one of the most talked about topics in life, let truth be lived again in our every day livingness–let our relationships be our medicine.

Yes Adele we have relationships all around us don’t we? With our families and friends and colleagues and community and in truth they are all as important as each other because they are all coming from the quality that we express. This is our daily medicine.

Gyl, you beautifully exposed another way we can keep ourselves contracted by believing fairy tales and comments from people, books and films. In doing so we can miss the true story of our own strength and beauty. We get caught up in another story and we forget that our own is just as magical.

This is very true Kim, it is common for us to put so much focus and time in to finding ‘the one’ that we miss out on connecting with our own amazingness and on finding out that we are the one and that we are enough and are complete with or without a partner.

I really felt this for myself yesterday. How can I look to another when I do not truly know and honour myself as the one? It felt huge and something I know my body is processing. We have to live with ourselves first and foremost.

Oh those fairy tales that have little girls programmed to believe that their prince will come, save them from a life of drudgery and that they will live happily ever after. I certainly was programmed to believe this; got married young and divorced 10 years later; no happily ever after in my world. To raise girls to know the beautiful and amazing beings that they are, and that the most important relationship is the one with themselves, is of the utmost importance, not just for the girls, but for the ripple effect that will flow on to all those around them.

Totally beautiful Ingrid, I agree. My children have never watched a movie and my daughter knows she is a beautiful and amazing being. However she is now at school and the influence of these movies on the children is astounding. She will come home from school and quote names from movies she has never seen and speak of ideas of how girls should be.

For most of my life up until only recently I was caught up in the belief that I was not enough without a man. It was so ingrained in me that my soul gave me dreams for 3 years about this “man issue” to support me to get through the neediness of having a man. In truth it was not a “man issue” it was really about me needing to deeply appreciate and value me for just being me. As I filled myself up with appreciation I had no need to be filled by some-one or some-thing outside of me.

There is so much shared in your comment Mary-Louise that speaks volumes of where this ‘neediness’ comes from to have a man or an intimate relationship. We are fed from an early age how life should look like so that when we don’t fit into that very narrow picture we think there is something wrong with us or we are not enough. Crazy really, when as you have shared when we fill ourselves up with appreciation there is no need to be filled by someone or something outside of ourselves. It also speaks volumes about how we in fact go into intimate relationships, looking to that other person to fill us up. Which gives them an impossible task right from the start. Again, crazy really, as we load our relationship up with expectations and unfulfillable needs.

This is a beautiful revelation Mary-Louise and one that is there for all women to come to for themselves in time, that it is the appreciation and valuing of ourselves as women that truly brings true love and its embrace.

“In truth it was not a “man issue” it was really about me needing to deeply appreciate and value me for just being me” – value me for just being me – this is super Mary-Louise and what a brilliant way of looking at and understanding this issue that so many of us have. I certainly had this [not accepting me for just being me] since a young woman and all the way until my mid 30’s before I began to appreciate myself… washing away affliction or hurt to reveal the true value of myself underneath. Symbolically, the more we lovingly polish, the shinier and lovelier we are revealed.

I Know this belief too Mary-Louise, not being enough without a man, which underneath was about not being enough being me…… as you share; ‘ As I filled myself up with appreciation I had no need to be filled by some-one or some-thing outside of me’. I love how simple the truth is when we gain the understanding of what was at play.

‘These are not my thoughts’ is the most profound teaching that has transformed my life. I am still getting a handle on the absolute truth of what these words of wisdom by Serge Benhayon really mean and coming to terms with the impact thinking that my thoughts were mine have had on my life and still does. It is certainly a work in progress and I feel deeply blessed to have this understanding because most of humanity are trapped in thinking their thought are their own.

Ditto Mary Louise. When I entertain the possibility of my thoughts and pictures not actually being mine and feel what it is like without them, an incredible liberation awaits. Really seeing the full extent of this is slowly being revealed to me and for that I feel extremely fortunate.

I know theses thoughts are not mine, yet anytime I choose to disconnect from myself, the amazingness I am and the divinity I am, from and live – these thoughts can attempt sneak back in. But the power and the truth is in that moment I have a choice and a responsibility to say no to the energy that is feeding these thoughts, and appreciate I can make choices and I do know there is another way. In doing so every single person on this planet has the choice to do the same.

Yes, this proves that life is a constant source of energy, for when we are choosing to be ourselves such thoughts cease to exist and yet when we drop ourselves to be less in any way the thoughts can be back thick and fast. Isn’t it interesting, and confirming that life is also about a constant choosing of the energy and the way in which we want to live as opposed to letting life happen to us.

Really feeling the truth in the words ‘I do know there is another way’ in this comment Gyl. Yes, this other way is in the very fabric of our being and when we finally choose it again, it feels like an alignment with ‘the divinity I am’ – rather like when a locking mechanism unlocks, all the barrels fall into place and there is a grand re-opening of our hearts.

Thank you Gyl. Perfect timing to receive your blog and the amazing depth of communication that flows on here. I will be honest and share that I am now experiencing the transition from being in a relationship, to being single and you know what – as I simply express this there is a sense that to be ‘in’ a relationship means that I have made it – thus the fact of this ending has brought about a huge sense of failure. But what I can really sense here is that we are always in relationship, with everything. There is nothing we are not in relationship with and the one being we are in relationship with every moment of every day is ourselves. So I ask myself, how do I truly feel in relationship with me?

Beautiful sharing Clare, indeed there is nothing we are not in relationship with, and the quality of how we are in relation to the all that is around us stems from the quality of the relationship we have with ourselves.

I love your honesty hear Clare. Reading your comment has led me to realise that there is still part of me that holds onto this same belief that being in a relationship means that you have made it. Thanks for your sharing as it has exposed this old belief that is still hanging around in the background.

I have to put my hand up and say I am guilty of asking single women how it is that they are still single and without children. I have come to learn that this curiosity of nine is because I was unable to connect with myself as a person or a woman first and so struggled to be able to connect with people who did not fit this picture. Instead I was choosing to hide behind the role of mother and wife. Once I connected to myself more as a woman I was able to connect with all women no matter what their life choices.

I was caught up in those very same beliefs. Where I grew up it was seen as very unfortunate, (with the implication that something was wrong with you) if you were not married by the age of 24! Most of my adult life was regulated by rules, expectations, ideals. I liken this to living in a fog. In the last few years the fog is slowly lifting allowing me to see my own brightness and embrace life wholeheartedly.

‘Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner.’
This is true and so then we ask… how can another person make you complete when you are already complete?

I hadn’t really stopped to think about it but certainly when I was at school there was very little consideration of career or a future on my own. I realise it was considered what you did, got married , had a family and the man was the bread winner. I’ve lived alone for a number of years now and I have to say I love it. I love having people around me but never feel lonely when they leave after all I’m with me.

I also felt this pressure to ‘be with someone’ when I was choosing to be single. I ended up having to be very clear with certain people that I was totally ok with being single and that it was a choice not a condition that needed fixing! I felt that my decision to be single at that time made a lot of people around me uncomfortable and that really was a reflection on them. And then in order to relieve themselves of this discomfort they kept introducing me to people they thought I might ‘like’.

The same goes for men. We are fed that we should be in a relationship. And for me I can see that I dived from one relationship into another just to not feel the emptiness inside me. Women literally filled me up. But now these holes are filled up with love, thanks to living lovingly and truly caring for myself. Great article Gyl!

Thank you Willem. It is important we have these conversations and discussions with and about men. Too often these areas, alongside many other things such as mental health issues, depression, suicide rates and body image are overlooked.

It is these simple conversations that open the door to healing, be it young boys childhood hurts and or lifetimes of abuse. I was in the gym the other morning and it was great to see on national news a man speaking about mental health awareness. Why – because so often talking about our feelings or areas such as these has been seen to be a woman’ s thing, something that men don’t do, express their feelings, open up, talk about what’s really going on for them – we all feel the same things. This is not about gender. This is about truth, it is a game that’s played to stereotype us and keep us separate, when in fact we are all equal, with the same equal sensitivity and ability to feel everything.

The beliefs that a woman is inadequate, that something is wrong with her if she is single and without children are endemic and very true that they are fed to us from when we were young. They are designed to debase a woman so that she can never connect to her true worth, beauty and grace that has nothing to do with whether she is a wife, mother, a partner, and everything to do with her having connected and embodied that amazing love she already is — by virtue of the fact that she is a woman.

These beliefs are endemic and there is more pressure in some cultures and countries than others for women to be married and have children. When I see it like this it confirms even more the significance and grounding power of Natalie Benhayon and Esoteric Women’s Health to support women to re-connect to their True worth, True beauty and True Grace – a global grass roots revolution for women.

It is extremely freeing and liberating one starts to become aware of, examine and let go of our beliefs and picture of how our lives should be. The ideals and beliefs keep us tightly bound, making us subscribe to a life that is not coming from within us, but an imposed image or picture of what our life’s need to look like in order for us to find happiness, thank you Gyl for exposing how awful ideals and beliefs can be.

The insidiousness belief of having to be in a relationship to feel complete, fulfilled and happy, could it be we are feed these type of pictures to keep us from connecting to the love and power inside, always looking outside in a never ending cycle, even when we find what we thought we were looking for, we still feel empty and unfulfilled, and start looking again for something else to fill the emptiness.

Absolutely beautiful revelation Gyl, that the love you have always sought was already inside of you. This is a profound understanding to have and to nurture for ourselves as we become held by our own love instead of being held (or trapped) by belief systems. There is a natural Grace about a man and a woman that knows who they are and whether they are in a relationship or not, stands grand in their beauty and unity with all.

Prior to a meeting the other day some of the female participants were engaged in social chit chat, with one sharing that she had recently attended a wedding where a female friend in her late forties got married for the first time. This was followed with shock and disbelief from the other women in the room at this woman leaving it so late in life to get married. The conversation then moved on to a justification about her being a ‘career girl’ and then almost in the same breath everyone in the room looked at me, also a single woman in her 40s who has never been married.

In the past I would have been absolutely mortified to have been exposed in this way, and felt humiliated at my state of long-term single-dom. However on this occasion, since attending Serge Benhayon’s presentations there was a lovely feeling that came with staying present with myself in that moment, utterly enjoying just being me, and allowing everyone to see me in full, no hiding and no justification. A woman who truly loves herself is a very powerful sight to behold, be it single or not. Thank you Gyl for raising this important topic of discussion.

Stevie Cole- this is a great example of the forces that can come at women to shake her in her boots in an attempt to make the woman less, I would not blame you if you had quivered a little but instead I am delighted to celebrate this moment you had with your colleagues, its glory and all of the loving choices that you stand upon.

Powerful Stevie Cole “…there was a lovely feeling that came with staying present with myself in that moment, utterly enjoying just being me, and allowing everyone to see me in full, no hiding and no justification.” When we heal and come to accept that no partner is ever going to fulfil us and all we have to do is connect to ourselves, it is so empowering and honouring of us.

Great and HUGE question Gyl – “Was it easier to need to be in a relationship and be with a man than to feel my own lack of self-worth?” — and I would say that in addition to this (being true), is also the actual search-for-a-partner itself as being a complete distraction towards not feeling the hollowness of void/worth. ‘Being single’ is such an awesome opportunity (not curse or handicap as i once saw and took it for myself) to get to know who you are. This has been one of the greatest understandings I’ve received through Universal Medicine which I hold dearly and in full appreciation. Getting to know ourselves is the very basis of relationship with others, and life itself. As without this what do we really have?

Great point Zofia, being single is a huge opportunity to get to know ourselves. If we enter into a partner relationship without having gotten to know ourselves then we are more likely to lose ourselves within the relationship.

“Getting to know ourselves is the very basis of relationship with others and life itself”. So very true Zofia. If it was truly understood how precious and deeply confirming it is to develop relationship with oneself, there may be more people, women and men alike, consciously choosing to be single for a period of time. While I am open to sharing all of the love that I am in an intimate relationship, until such time as this level of love is able to be met, I am absolutely dedicated to my ever deepening relationship with me as the glorious, sexy and sassy single woman that I am. All of my relationships benefit from this whether I’m single or not.

Just to show how we get conditioned from such a young age, or the fact of reincarnation and this has come through from a part life. I had a young boy age physically blown away, looking shocked and saying what at 38 (as I had shared it’s my birthday soon) when I said no to his question ‘was I married or did I have a boyfriend’. This blew me away, not in judgement but as a confirmation of the responsibiity I have to live truth and express it. This does not mean running around verbally saying / shouting it at every given moment, but a consistency and a commitment to living it and expressing it in all I do. So people have a choice.

Yes Gyl. I have often found myself saying to my children when they talk about marriage ‘but maybe when the time comes you may not feel to marry or even be in a relationship.’ They go quiet but it is important as parents to raise our children to offer that they do have a choice because the image of the prince and princess living happily ever after that they are faced with from day one is huge.

This is a beautiful Blog Gyl, thank you. I see young teenagers dating boys who they are totally unsuited to just so that they can say that they have a boyfriend. Not only do I see them not finding a beautiful relationship with someone who they are truely conneted to, I also see them losing themselves in the process

As much I learn so much about myself being single I also love being in an intimate partner relationship too. I say this as often we can use being single as a way to avoid intimacy or letting people in.

A good clarifier Gyl, but what you were pointing to was more the intent behind entering into a relationship then actually being in a relationship yeah? And that needs to be exposed to the hills, which you have beautifully done. If there is no love in the beginning, there will be no love in the middle, and definitely no love in the end. Unless we choose to break it, and introduce true love, only then can we start it all again.

As I begin to open up and let people in I am beginning to feel intimacy with others simply by expressing more of who I am. It can be a little uncomfortable at times as I re-imprint but it is so beautiful. We can be intimate whether we are in a relationship or not.

Gyl, it’s true that all these pictures we have of romantic love distract us by making us look for love outside ourselves and even if we do find a loving partner we cannot truly bring love to that relationship if we do not love ourselves. Appreciating who I am and what I bring is a necessary foundation to establishing a loving foundation where we no longer need love from someone else – only then can we truly be love.

This is so true Sandra – that even if we are in a relationship if we are not connecting deeply to and valuing ourselves then there is no love that can be truly shared for love comes from the inside out and is shared with another.

‘Not only do all these pictures, ideals and beliefs put pressure on girls and women, they equally put pressure on boys and men.’
Gyl, I agree it’s not easy for the men and boys either for the images they are fed are of some super hero or ideal man who is a usually a bit hard and not able to express what he’s feeling, when in reality boys are just as tender and sensitive as girls but are conditioned not to show their feelings. What a pressure to try and be something we are not – and who really wants that type of man or woman anyway?

Absolutely awesome blog Gyl, I can so relate to everything you have written. I have allowed many of the thoughts your spoke of to riddle my thoughts over my adult years. I have been in and out of relationships, but when not in one, feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, that I don’t measure up, don’t fit in, what’s wrong with me. All of those things have presented. It has taken long time demystify and debunk those ideals and beliefs I’ve had going on, sometimes they still come up and I have to be ultra vigilant in letting them go and to come back to what I know to be true, just as you say in your very last line “the love I had been looking for all along is actually inside of me.” So very true.

Thank you Gyl, even the title is powerful! I can really feel the strength of your quality in every word. “All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not.” Yes, I can definitely say that I have held beliefs about ‘needing to be with someone’, and ‘not being able to be strong, powerful and truly successful in this world without a man – that that was just what was meant to happen in life”. It’s good to expose these conscious or subconscious thoughts!

They are not needed at all Arianne, I absolutely agree.. Every women is strong enough just as she is, especially when she claims ‘I am that I am’ and simply lets herself be, and (without intending this to rhyme) it is more than a delight to see, it’s a joy

There is something very precious about the relationship we have with ourselves. It fills you up from head to toe and then some. Serge Benhayon initiated this way of living for myself and many other people of which I wholeheartedly appreciate. Before Universal Medicine I had relationships but none were as divine as the one I now live with everyday, the Light of my Soul. Great blog Gyl.

I agree Matthew. The feeling of being in relationship with myself is truly delicious. I have for a long time avoided it so that I can keep confirming my lack of self-worth. But no more of that. No sireee! Now it is time to confirm my delicateness, my light, my life and my love.

“Why did I feel I needed to be with a man, why did I feel I was not enough? I realised what a huge impact theses thoughts had played out in my life, and that they stemmed from a lack of self-worth.” We need to start loving and accepting ourselves as the beautiful women and men we are, to be able to have true relationships. Thank you for sharing Gyl.

When I was of dating age, I didn’t even consider why I wanted to have a partner. It was just what you did! On some levels this is quite true as I feel we naturally seek relationships to be loving and grow in. However when it is not true is when it is driven by all the ideals and expectations we have been fed by society.

Gyl, thank you for writing about this topic; it is huge and such a support for any single person who struggles with trying to justify why they may be single. I feel in everybody’s life there is inevitably times when we will be single. We were not born with the partner at our side, ready to go. Allowing what unfolds, deepening our own self love and doing what is needed is just a natural way to go.

Your photo at the top is stunning and radiates your beauty, strength and power Gyl. I can feel the service you offer in shaking yourself free and not subscribing to ‘needing a partner’ to complete the picture of a successful woman so that you are now able to write such a blog and without reaction show you are complete and can be complete when single.

Hi Gyl
I feel as though I have met you through your gorgeous picture and writing. You radiate with the love that you are, the presence and depth that you bring. I feel blessed receiving it, thank you and can feel the same qualities equally within myself too.

The pictures that are fed to us are a strong, insidious force because they are seemingly harmless and yet entrap us, drive us into creating these pictures at all costs, often harming ourselves and others along the way and in this way deceive and beguile us into thinking that we are incomplete without them. And so with this dissatisfaction, searching and driving, they keep us from what is there right inside of us, from really living the true women that we are.

Your questions are fabulous for all women to embrace, Gyl: ‘Was it easier to need to be in a relationship and be with a man than to feel my own lack of self-worth? Was it a need for security rather than to stand tall on my own?’ And equally the questions are pertinent for men to ask themselves, too. We can see that by not claiming our innate love and power, we hurt and harm others along the way, by needing affirmation and security and hence not bringing the completeness that we are.

The teachings of Universal Medicine have enabled me to see the extent of the hold these pictures have on me and to begin to confirm the qualities that are innately mine as a woman; my steadiness, stillness, grace and power; to deeply accept and appreciate myself, my capacity and what I bring.

And hurt and harm we do – entering into a relationship convincing ourselves it is ‘real love’ when we know it’s really just ‘convenient love’ or ‘idealistic love’, what does that do for ourselves? Much of the same old heartache. I guarantee living love by bring love to myself each and everyday. It really is that simple.

There is such a focus on ‘finding the perfect partner’, and very little focus on being the perfect partner for yourself! once we nail this we stand a chance of being something of true value to someone else

Yep so true and perfectly expressed Joel ! We are so easy and fast in putting out the focus to create the perfect picture for us instead of bringing it back to us . I will focus on being the perfect partner for myself now 🙂 What a gift to be with someone who nails this..

I have always smiled at the anonymous saying that ‘a women needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle’. Adam and Eve had it right then it all went wrong is it time to come back to were we started and just accept everyone without expectations and loving ourselves first.

Your words here Gyl show just how laced our view of the world is by separateness and individuality. Being in a relationship seems to mean for so many, ‘not being alone’. Yet following this dream only keeps us away from seeing the truth of the world – we are all intimately connected and are one, each of us is brother and sister, every human being a member of our family. Imagine the relationships we can have knowing we are all beautiful and powerful in our own right. Thank you for firmly popping this balloon Gyl and claiming back your light.

This is a great blog Gyl and so needs to be said. Being a man, I have also felt the pressure to be a hero, a knight in shining armour for a damsel in distress – which means overriding any vulnerability or fragility in the effort to be valiant, be recognised and ultimately ‘loved’. It is all for protection that is rooted in doing whatever is needed to avoid getting hurt at all costs. The greater the protection, the more heroic the effort. This is the mould that shapes the stereotypical man. The pressure that is put on boys to become the stereotypical man is so big that by the time men become adults, many find themselves slaves to the ideals that validate them from the outside – usually by a partner. Hence, the emptiness we feel when we have bought into those ideals yet do not fulfil them. The answer is not about living in isolation, but approaching all relationships from the knowing that nobody can fill that hole. Because we are already whole and it is by accepting our own love that we can enter into a partnership if we choose to, with zero need and all the love we are.

It does feel like so much in society is set up for women to feel a ‘need’ for a relationship, and we do have the power to make the choice as to whether we go along with it or not. This article is a great exploration of why we might feel swayed by those ‘thoughts’ that come in to our heads, concerning what it means to be a woman. I know I have spent most of my adult life in relationships, some from need and some for connection…”Was it easier to need to be in a relationship and be with a man than to feel my own lack of self-worth? Was it a need for security rather than to stand tall on my own?” It is interesting to consider that we can feel lonely and in need when we are relationships, we do not need to be single to feel this because if we do not look at our ‘self worth’, issues come up regardless of whether we are with some one or not. I would suggest we cannot be truly with another if we cannot accept and ‘be’ with ourselves whether we are single or in a relationship with a partner.

Being the powerful woman, no matter if you are with someone or not. For me is a very important fact, because indeed it doesn´t matter if we are with someone or not to be powerful and complete. Everyone has to choose for themselves what is there to grow from, either being single or if you choose to be in a relationship. But the very crucial fact is we need the foundation in ourselves first. It is great that you reveal the myths around being single – Everyone who reads this blog, no matter if single or not, can really ponder about if they are in their livingness of their true essence or not.

Reading your words Gyl and feeling you return to the power and strength that you truly have is very beautiful to see. It’s inspiring to see someone living free from these boxes and conditions of who we need to be.

Gyl this is a brilliant blog (with a gorgeous photo), and you’re right, these sorts of ideas and beliefs impact on men and women the same. When you really break it down, the majority of the time that we give ourselves a hard time, is because w’re measuring ourselves against an idea or a belief about how we think we should be or shouldn’t be. ‘I haven’t lived up to this’ ‘I haven’t lived up to that’ ‘I”m not enough of this’ ‘I’m not enough of that’ – all complete rubbish. Who set these rules? These standards? And why is it that we let them get in the way of us enjoying life? It’s beautiful reading about how you’ve been able to bust open, put them behind, and simply live you, what could any more divine?

Thank you Martin. I would go so far to say everybody in the world at some point in our life “give ourselves a hard time, because we’re measuring ourselves against an idea or a belief” that are not true.

There are millions of pictures in our head and from outside being fed to us, we are bombarded every single day, not only with relationships but with everything else. What Serge Benhayon presents, lives and shares, is the fact there is another way to live, one that is free from beliefs and constraints. That these pictures we are fed are not true, they are not real, we will never be able to reach them because they don’t exist. And that we have a choice and a responsibility to say no to this.

As a single male I can relate to what you have written Gyl, I would rather be single than be in a relationship thats based on need or dependancy and as you have stated the love we are seeking is inside of us.

Great call Joe and very well said – I have now been in and seen too many abusive relationships – this does not need to be in the physical sense, it can be emotional, verbal, mental abuse from a partner or yourself in the finest of ways, that I will not be in a relationship unless it is true love, the love I now know and feel inside of me and from others such as Serge Benhayon and evolving too. That doesn’t mean it has to be perfect and we don’t stuff up, but that there’s an openness and willingness to continually be and grow more love, not only with ourselves, together but all others too. And never saying no to the next level it can go to.

Gyl I agree our society thinks if we are not in a partnership there is something wrong with us. This idea creates room for many dysfunctional or functional relationships to form and does not create the space for us to form loving and supportive relationships.

Maybe in the future the pressure will not be there around relationships, and the ideals and beliefs that we have will change focussing more on our growth as a person. learning from each other and recognizing the Divinity within each of us . In life it doesn’t matter if we are single or not, it is all down to how we feel and what we would like in our lives, we are not here to fulfil societies wants and needs but our own. The Way of The Livingness teaches us about the need for Brotherhood and thanks to Serge Benhayon’s Presentations we are all changing.

Yes Gyl, the pressure is very huge from every angle, even in the language. What does mean to be single? It’s the opposite of being in company. But if I go to my experience, although I’m also single, I don’t have that sense of loneliness. On the contrary! I feel very connected to each person in my life. What I share with them is so deep and rich that I don’t have any sense of neediness. I strongly feel that it doesn’t matter if I have partner or not, what really matters is the quality in each relationship that I have. And this is measured by the quality of my presence, not only with them but specially in the intimacy of my own life.

Being single is often seen as a temporary status while we wait for our Mr Right or Prince Charming to arrive…and for some he does, for others not the case. Even as we get older, having been in and come out of relationships, being single is often viewed as a 2nd rate status and something to bear until the next relationship comes along, or being single is champeoned from the disullusionment an hurt of failed relationships. However, if we are sitting in a place where we have healed (or are working on healing) our lack of self worth and have developed self love then being single won’t make us feel any less than if we are partnered.

This is true Sandra, and being partnered has no more or less to it anyway. it Just simply is. We can be partnered and disconnected and lonely, and we can be single and disconnected and lonely. It all comes back to us.

We believe that we are free and often are not willing to see with how many expectations and ideals we burden ourselves . When truly observing what pictures are sold by the media, the industries and aspired to be lived up to by us and everybody else, how can we than say that what we see and feel does look like freedom?

So true Michael, I know I for one place way too many expectations on myself – and with that others – and they literally feel like a heavy invisible weight I am carrying around. You can see this in other people too when you observe them, at times they look like they are carrying the weight of the world, or invisible bags full of heavy items. But that difference, that spark, that lightness and joy that can be found in the freedom of truth is immense. People can instantaneously change in a moment, their whole, body, posture and face when they get to feel truth.

Awesome blog and so exposing of how we are in the world so held by our believes and ideals: “At the time these comments made me smile, as I was able to see where they were coming from … beliefs and ideals we grow up with and then believe to be our own.” I now feel like you, seeing how the world is around being single and having to have relationships is almost to ridiculous to be true, wouldn’t it be the reality for most! Which is actually quite sad to see. I have been also held in these believes that I wouldn’t be complete without a man and that was quite a horrible ‘prison’ to be in. Especially now I feel that there is so much more to me as a woman than being in a relationship with a man. I feel deeply beautiful and the power in me as a woman is the biggest joy in my day to feel as it is growing and growing more now I start accepting it.

Love your comment Lieke, this sentence stood out; ‘ Especially now I feel that there is so much more to me as a woman than being in a relationship with a man’. I am feeling the power of you as a woman and all that you bring….

Absolutely Jacqueline and Lieke, there is so much more to all of us than being in a relationship with anyone! So often we make being in a relationship the be all and end all of life. But if we were to allow ourselves to be all that we are and simply enjoy our gorgeousness we might actually be able to enjoy life no matter if we are in a relationship or not, and anyone we relate to would be graced with our beautiful presence.

Yes reading this again and your words Rebecca, make me even more aware how most of my life I had this idea that in the end yes it was ultimately about being in a relationship. Life was very much about finding a boyfriend for me for a long time. Letting go of this idea has been a gradual process and sometimes little bits still come up but it is as you say a life that is full of the gorgeousness of me being me in ful in all my relationships. I think it also puts less pressure on a reltionship to be the One perfect reltionship. As already feeling complete in myself.

Gyl, it’s great to read this again and understand your message here. These ideals we have been fed are so disempowering for both men and women and it starts as young children. It would make me smile if I now got asked the question,’ Who is the Love in your life?’ … and to this I could reply, ‘Me.’ but seeing as we are all the same, from One Love, I could equally reply, ‘Everyone.’ Now that would get a raised eyebrow!

Go for it Susan, I love it, you could have s much fun, plus it would bust so many pictures along the way. I have said to people, mainly kids and teenager, when asked the question or really presented with the statement ‘you love yourself’ – ‘yes I do’. At times they are blown away by this as we have been fed the belief that loving yourself is arrogant and selfish when that is so far tom the truth. Arrogance in my book is selfish only about you, or being better than another – stemming from a lack of self worth, loving yourself is a different ball game altogether, it’s about cherishing how amazing and precious you are and celebrating that with the world, knowing everyone is equally the same as you.

I love what you both shared – what a great and inspiring idea to answer “I love myself”. It makes so much more sense than answering “I am not in love in the moment”. And I agree Gyl “it would bust so many pictures along the way” and that is something worth to do.

Beautiful Gyl. It is important that the lies about self-love are exposed. To negate self-love is to close the doorway on being love. The equal-ness you express here is key – true self-love brings the awareness that we are all Love and not arrogantly ‘bigging ourselves up’ as many see it.

Thanks Gyl, this is a great expose on the many ideals and beliefs we buy into when it comes to being single missing the opportunity that is present for us to develop our own relationship with ourselves and healing until the time that we don’t feel we need to have another in oder to feel complete, but we have a total knowing that we are enough being us and sharing that with others.

Gyl I had experienced before I met my husband similar comments as you, it use to make me feel like there was something wrong with me. Now having been married for 9 years, I get asked have you got children, do you want any? I no longer get caught or upset anyone. With the support of Esoteric practitioners I have a greater understanding of what my body is going through and I am building a deeper relation with myself.

I have had many flings, affairs and relationships all coming from a deep hurt of not feeling enough, a lack of self-worth and thinking that I need a man to feel complete. It took me to be in my fourties to actually honestly realize that I need to have a relationship with myself first and foremost and that all the love I have been looking for outside of myself, is actually inside me. No man, not even a prince on a horse, can complete me.

How arrogant it is to pressure someone into a relationship they are not ready for. Someone who does not really know themselves will not get that through a relationship, and may get further lost. a solid relationship begins with a solid connection to self, and some of us need the grace of time to build that.

Bernard you raise a great point here, ” How arrogant it is to pressure someone into a relationship they are not ready for. Someone who does not really know themselves will not get that through a relationship, and may get further lost” I have done that in the past. It is important to allow another or yourself for that matter to be where they or you are at. This is true love.

I love this line about ‘the grace of time to build’ a solid connection with ourselves. This is the formative relationship that effects all others, so if we are ducking responsibility, commitment and care here that will undermine every other relationship we have, spreading the disconnect and irresponsibility further. Grace is a really powerful thing and is the space and inspiration to feel our true exquisiteness in full. A beautiful word and invitation. Thank you, Bernard.

What is the purpose of keeping women small? When we think about the way the world is, with women in so few positions of power, women paid less for many jobs, with the worlds traditional religions oppressing women, with so many laws disadvantaging women, with fairy tales telling women that they need a man to be complete, and the list goes on and on, what is it about women that creates such fear and what kind of power is it that women have that is being repressed?
Women have the power to change the world. They hold the essence and stillness for men to find their true nature. They hold harmony, stillness and love as humanity’s true calling. We are all connected, women and men, equal and with complimentary expressions. It is time for women to change things from within.

I bet every woman can relate to this blog. I have been considering a lot of the same things over the last few years, and have had to admit there has been a real need for a man to make me feel good about myself, secure, wanted, beautiful… yet I’ve never fully committed to a relationship with one. Looking back I haven’t allowed myself to truly feel myself as a single woman, and to know I am enough. It’s well worth considering if these ideals have affected us, and how that looks in our life and relationships today.

I have really enjoyed being single for periods within my life and have learnt alot about myself during these. Our first relationship is always with our self and knowing this is a great foundation for all other relationships we have.

Lacking self worth has been a big thing for me too. I have come to realise that I choose it so that I can stay in the comfortable prison of not feeling enough and staying small. If I choose to connect to my innermost I can feel a universe inside me. When I am with it, there is no such thing as self-worth because it is not even in the vocabulary of love, where every soul is equally held in the same quality.

The ideals and beliefs of society and the images portrayed through the media, have set women up to feel incomplete without a partner. It’s wonderful to feel how empowering it has been for you to not only claim the beautiful woman you are, but that the love you have for yourself enables you to feel complete.

What I also realsied when reading your blog was how much society wants us to be a particular way. I find it amazing when people who are single get the comments like you described above, however when and if they choose to get married or have a partner the next question is always when are you having chidren? and then it is when will you have more children? Your not going to only have one child are you? The list goes on.

It is great to have article like this one that looks at what it is to be single. We need more articles like this which show us the joy that comes when we are connected with ourselves, irrespective of whether we are single or not.

We do experience amazing joy when we are connected to ourselves, this joy is felt whether we are in a relationship or not. The joy comes from the deep connection within ourselves, which is felt within and expressed outwardly.

Yes Elizabeth this is so needed. Within our cultures there is an all pervading ideal that unless you tick the boxes of being in a relationship etc then you can’t find fulfilment and happiness. The idea is that you need someone else, someone outside of you to fill you up. No one ever really talks about the relationship with yourself, that you are always in relationship with yourself – first – before you can be in a relationship with another. This needs to be a fundamental lesson for all in school! It needs to talked widely of because until the penny drops for us we will continue to feel empty and to chase the connection we are missing outside of ourselves.

And that this relationship with ourselves is the foundational one that informs all others. Taking time to develop our love and care for ourselves is the keystone for life and can happen alongside being in life, in relationship with all those we interact with, from our daily passings by, to our families, to our one to ones.

I agree Matilda “taking the time to develop our love and care for ourselves is the key” foundation for all other relationships we have with everybody. The more loving and caring I am with me, the more open, natural, joyful and loving I am with everyone.

“Being a single woman in this world can often be seen as if there is something wrong with you.” I can relate to this, but more importantly I used to think there was something wrong with me if I didn’t have a partner. I am glad to say this belief about myself disappeared many moons ago, but it was deeply entrenched. Now I know all that was needed was of me to value the most important relationship of all – one with myself… after all, this is the 1st relationship I was born with and the last one I will be taking with me.

Beautifully put Rachel. The most important relationship of all is with self as without this there is no connection to God, so I feel it is important to say that although this is the first relationship we are born with it is the only relationship that is ultimately needed because in this relationship to God, we are in relationship to all. This is not something which is done in isolation to all else but is an all encompassing feeling that embraces everyone and everything including the point of death and beyond.

The relationship with ourselves is something that is never discussed and is quite foreign and even strange to many. The fact is we all have a relationship with ourselves, but don’t realise that it’s happening because it’s not based on love, our innermost love. It is based on goal posts that move, ideals that change and the slippery slope of what others think.

A great point Matthew. It seems that we only celebrate ourselves when something “good” happens and look to that something outside of ourselves for confirmation. When things don’t go our way we take that as confirmation that we are not much good or have failed in some way. It is totally foreign that we celebrate and appreciate ourselves consistently in the knowledge of what we in our essence bring to everyone else. As Kathryn asks “Why is it so foreign to know ourselves in this way?”

“Why did I feel I needed to be with a man, why did I feel I was not enough?” I love this question you raised in your amazing blog Gyl and I love the answer you found namely that that your are love, and that the love you had been looking for all along is actually inside of you and in all of us – how beautiful and inspiring is that.

I have been single for quite a long time now. About 6 years since my last longterm relationship, which didn’t last very long. It’s not that I don’t want to commit to a relationship. I have needed this time to develop a relationship with myself, to begin to building my self-worth and love. To learn to commit to this relationship has been really important for me. I am enjoying being single more than ever before and the feeling that I actually don’t need anyone to be a partner is a very freeing feeling.

‘Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner.’
Gyl you have a exposed a very common belief and its awful and true.
At work I have noticed that its common for people to ask girls and women if they have a boyfriend or husband and with this line of questioning the whole assumption that they are heterosexual is thrown in the mix also. I remember one young lady being asked and she looked at the person with great discomfort as the question pushed her into having to be partnered AND not being able about to express something as delicate as her gender preference.

Men have also been indoctrinated to believe that without a partner in his life by his thirties, there must be something wrong with him. I have had many people, especially women (trying to be kind) say things like – you should have a wife! Get married! etc etc. May be one day. May be not. Either way, i am not attached to the idea. I do know that I am feeling ‘married’ to me in a deeper sense than ever before and this is a relationship that I am surrendering to with greater depth everyday.

Very true Jinya, I am 20 and still have some sort of expectation or belief that I will be married in my 20s. Again, the fear of ‘being alone’ or not being accepted by people creeps in, but When I feel my full self I don’t actually plan much into the future, I have an idea of how I want things to be but give much more focus to the present allowing me to feel at ease with whatever may present itself.

Thank you Gyl, it’s a much needed message in this world. As women from a young age, we do impose so much of our needs on men to fit our ideal pictures which is not really fair on them and doesn’t allow them to just be.

I often get asked the question about when I am getting married as if it is not a choice for me. I’ve even had family members and relatives tell me in a bossy way just to “hurry up” about it. And I have bought into the lie for a long time that having a husband would complete me when in truth I know it is only in accepting the love within me that allows me to feel complete and share this with others.

In reading this blog by Gyl, I am discovering how the journey in to womanhood is made so much sweeter when it is shared with people who are equally as keen to explore life beyond the fantasy and the lies we are fed about what a woman should be like.

I have of all those thoughts and beliefs we grow up with as tapes running in my head that I can switch off in an instant but that are always ready to be switched back on again. My achilles heel is that I am more familiar with them and it has been easier to default back to them rather ‘than accept the powerful and amazing woman I am’…the tide is changing as I make different choices for myself and re-write the story line about what it is to be a woman. There is no ‘rescue me’ myth to be played out. There is only, be open to the love we all carry inside and take that in activity into the world. Everything is affected by this and being in a relationship is simply another expression of this, not an essential missing piece of the puzzle.

Well said Matilda Clark. Being in a relationship/married is just another way to express love and it does not mean that if we are not in a relationship/marriage that we cannot express love or that we are somehow less. What a lie we have bought into and what a great one to see through and discard.

It is so twisted how we have been taught from young that life is all about finding The One. All the while, we are The One already. It’s a matter of connecting to who we truly are, and if we haven’t done that, no relationships ever can be satisfying. It seems that most people use relationships as a disguise that dismisses them from going deeper into themselves. I know for me – I have had a tendency to lose myself in relationships, and until that wont happen, I need to work on the love for myself first and foremost.
Thank you for a insightful blog, Gyl, with The Punchline that says it all: “I am love, and the love I had been looking for all along is actually inside of me.”

I had taken on so many ideals and beliefs since childhood about finding the ‘one’ that I felt I would never be happy if I didn’t get married. It just seemed that was what everyone was doing around me and I would follow suit. I found ‘Mr Right’ and entered the relationship very needy; all I wanted was for someone to look after me! How this has all changed since attending Universal Medicine. I am still in the same relationship but how I feel about myself has changed dramatically. The more I connect to me, be with me, the less controlling and insecure I am. I now see myself in the relationship not coming from need but because of choice, supporting me to evolve. So it doesn’t matter whether we are in a relationship or not, it is the connection we have to ourselves that is key that brings true fulfilment that I was for so long seeking outside of myself.

Caroline, I really enjoyed reading your comment and the changes that you have experienced are very significant. What you share is powerful, “So it doesn’t matter whether we are in a relationship or not, it is the connection we have to ourselves that is key that brings true fulfilment that I was for so long seeking outside of myself.” I wonder with these changes in yourself how this has supported the evolving of your marriage and your husband?

It is true Gyl Rae, there are so many impositions on us to fit into a society that is largely dysfunctional. So many people have gone against their own feelings in order to fit in it seems like we are all just fitting in and not many of us are making our life choices based on what is true for us. When we do this its like selling out ourselves. It is great to feel someone like you Gyl Rae who does not buy into those impositions and lives naturally joyful and honoring what you feel to be true. To someone who has sold out, they could feel resentful they did not honor their own feelings, or they could be inspired by this blog.

The pressure to be in a relationship is still huge in most parts of the world although I think it is lessening gradually. I can still remember years ago a sense of relief that came with dating because I could show others that I was ‘normal’. Back then it didn’t occur to me to question the status quo around expectations for people to be in a relationship but your blog certainly raises issues that I could say applied to me and everyone I knew at the time. The concept of self love was very foreign and it has taken me many years to chip away at these old ideals and beliefs.

It’s so important to choose to be aware of the pictures that we have chosen to believe and keep ourselves captive by rather than take responsibility for ourselves. I know I bought into the prince charming would come and save me so I’d not have to take responsibility for myself.

I dreamt I’d meet someone and I’d live whichever part of the world they lived – all because I didn’t want to be responsible for getting to know who I truly was and making choices from this place. I wanted to avoid making mistakes at all costs so I got numb to who I truly was and looked outside myself for guidance so lost my sense of myself. I choose partners based on the pictures I’d bought into. I asked them to look after me (whilst confusingly acting seemingly independent – I used to like time to myself to refuel -putting on the perfect partner act took energy! But equally, being alone I could feel how disconnected and empty I was, so I’d oscillate between the two).

Whether I had a partner or not the result was the same – I was deferring to these pictures and ideals and neither relating to them or myself. I constantly measured us up individually and as a couple to these perfect pictures – no-one came off well and I always felt I was missing out. I was, but not on the man I hadn’t yet met, but on knowing me and being me with everyone I meet.

It’s interesting how our ideals stem from our experiences in our childhood. I totally rebelled against the idea of getting married purely because I was witnessing my parents marriage which was dysfunctional. I did not want to go down the same route so made a pact with myself never to get married! I now realise this decision came from a deep hurt and was just as much of an ideal as wanting to get married. Either way they are ideals that come from our minds and out of reaction to what is going on around us without truly feeling what is right for us at the time.

It is absolutely gorgeous to feel you embracing yourself and all your beauty in this way Gyl. And why not? This is an amazing inspiration for us all and not to mention the truest and most empowering way to live life. Most tend to hide when they get in a relationship and embrace their beauty less and less and hence the empowerment of knowing and embracing yourself in full first.

There is such beauty in standing tall, on our own, without the need to belong or be part of another. There is also the same beauty in standing tall, in relationship with ourselves and to also be in relationship with another.

I used to think that I needed a partner in order to feel safe, and ticking the box of how to fit in. The more I trust myself, the less I need anything to hide behind. Nowadays I would love to have a partner – not because I need one, but to share and evolve with.

I recently was reminded of how important it is to claim ourselves in full before we go into any relationship. It is insidiously ingrained in us to even on minor and subtle levels, compromise a little on who we truly are for the other and the relationship, seemingly so, and this is extremely harmful and detrimental on both. It is so so super important to claim yourself in full first so being single and loving it is awesome!

A very important relationship is the one we have with self, often people don’t have self love or self appreciation making it hard to truly love another. If we enter into a relationship without first establishing a strong sense of self worth, and a sense of self love then we are going to fall for a partner and need them to love us, but there is no love for self. This scenario is very common and is why relationships like this are not sustainable. My best relationships/friendships have come when I have been full and complete in myself and I can enjoy the qualities of another person rather than ask them to love me, which is exhausting for them.

So true Harrison. If we are not be able to build an intimate and a loving relationship with ourselves first, how could we are in a relationship with another? It’s truly beautiful just sharing our qualities without expectations, pressures, pictures…It’s a pure sharing of love that everyone knows because we did in our childhood.

Gyl, I have been a single woman for 10 years by choice. IN the pst I would have not so great relationships as I would enter them from an absolute lack of self worth on the one hand and yearning for this strong men to lean against (so I did not have to stand in my own power) on the other hand. It came to a point where I felt I had to have a deeply loving and honouring relationship with myself first before entering into a relationship with an other and this then became my choice. After lots of healing and building I then opened up to a relationship again on very different grounds, on of living the love I am and sharing and developing this with the partner of my choice.

What enormous pressure we have build in our societies that are reflected in our fairy tales and romantic movies of how a woman and man should be and what a relationship should look like. We are constantly asked to look outside of ourselves as the ultimate distraction from what is already within.

Very true Carolien. Those fairy tales we tell our children are not so innocent after all are they. Not one of them reflects back to us the truly amazing beings of Love that we all are and how much Love we can be in relationship with others. Well said.

When I read your sharing Gyl, it reminds me on how important it is to expose all our ideas and beliefs. As you say, we can carry the beliefs and ideas with us for years or maybe even for lifetimes. They can have such a power and they can control how we go through life until the time we expose them and realize, that they don’t make sense at all. As you say, we are all love in our essence and complete, with partner or without a partner.

It is a big ask to make someone else responsible for our self worth. It is a huge pressure to put on a relationship and one that ultimately will not work to accept more love we have to accept that we are love.1

Gyl Rae, thank you for exposing the insidious trap set up for young women and men alike. Girls are constantly bombarded with the ideal that they will not feel complete until they find their man. To complete the set up it is assumed that the couple will not have any trouble because their romantic love will carry them through to live happily ever after, completely ignoring the need to build the love with each other. So both single and partnered girls are betrayed by the same illusion that completely denies and suppresses the natural strength and glory of a woman’s wisdom and love.

To live as we are, to compromise but not compromise ourselves, relationships feel like they offer a reflection and a steady pull to be more open and loving. Yet first and foremost to create a success of any type of relationship we have to build the one with ourselves first. It is like the company of someone who is at ease with themselves and not projecting any needs onto another, that is a person whom others wish to be around, as if drawn by a magnet which of course in many ways we are. It can always work the other way as well, where the loving reflection another offers is too bright and we shy away from the light.

Great points Stephan. The wonderful thing is that when we do not need others in any way we do not mind if they choose to shy away or draw close. We maintain the ease we feel because we are in a rock solid relationship with ourselves.

So could it be that we seek a form of comfort in relationships by playing it safe and going for what we know rather than the next step of evolution – the light / reflection we are being offered by another.

This is such a great blog in so many ways Gyl Rae, just one of them I will comment on for now is the realization that “these are not my thoughts” that is such a mind blowing concept that we can be so influenced by the popular culture we are bombarded with every day and we are not as free to think as we might think. Our minds that fell for this trap cannot get us out of it, it is only by trusting our heart felt feelings can we recognize what is really going on. It is very liberating to be able to feel and nominate in our society and our media where these impositions show up and how sneaky and tricky they are to hook you in.

Living in society might be tricky if we are invested in it. It is impossible to satisfy everyone around. When a woman is single there are a lot of questions as you correctly pointed out, Gyl. When a woman is married ther are still questions, a bit different like Are you going to have children? Why not? How many? All sort of questions about your relationship with your partner and kids. We are bombarded by ideals and beliefs front, back, left and right.
The only way to stay true to yourself and not bend is self love and deep appreciation of yourself.
You are a great example of it Gyl, thank you for sharing your delightful awesomeness.

It is so important to feel our own love, as society is so concentrated on the ideals and beliefs of relationships. They can’t ever fulfill our own self worth, so there shouldn’t be a difference if we are, or if we are not, in a relationship.

It’s true Benkt – if we didn’t impose our ideals and beliefs on everyone else, and allowed them to be themselves – we and the world would be in a very different place.And I would say with a lot less illness and disease. I watch it in schools, kids constantly telling each other what to do and how to be, and I have to admit it feels awful, you can see peoples bodies contract or the joy disappear from their face completely, it’s like their light goes out, it’s simply abuse.

‘Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner.’ Thank you for addressing this. Young girls (and boys) are horribly influenced by everything that is aired on TV and printed in magazines and such. They have no reason to question the truth of what they hear and what they see around them. They don’t realize that none of this has their best interest in mind but only to find new ways to sell a product and make money. Believing that we are not ok the way we are and that we need a lot to have a perfect and happy life is playing right into their cards. I say no more of this. All we need has been right inside of us all along.

The ways in which we are not free are so subtle. Not sitting in jail doesn’t mean that we are living as free beings. Being free is determined by the way I allow myself to observe thoughts, energy, actions and my intentions.

Such a great blog Gyl, I am a single women and have been asked all the questions you get asked many times over. Or when people have learned that I have indeed been married, but now divorced, it is like they feel relieved because they can ‘pop me in a box’, one that makes them feel more comfortable. But to see a beautiful, single, woman with no children in here early 40’s, usually raises the flag with some people, that there is something desperately wrong. I used to buy into that also, feeling the pangs of societal pressures, then add into my own hurts or issues and it used to be a recipe for feeling less than, feeding a cycle of low self worth and the like. That is not the case now, feeling my worth and value of who I am and what bring, without the neediness of having to be in a relationship or have children. The most liberating feeling in the world.

Coming back and reading this blog, it’s made me stop and think, is it really all the ideals and beliefs we are fed that are to blame, or is it the fact that we knowingly chose to walk away from God and love. So rather than face up to the truth, we choose an energy ( prana) that is not divine, from which we can create and feed ourselves all this stuff so we can indulge in it – it has been our own making. If we choose to connect straight back to our true divine source, God and connect to the energy of fire – then there would be no books about knights in shining armour rescuing princesses, stories of Mr Right, or finding the one – for in truth we are all one and come from the one.

It is dawning on me that although we are clearly designed to be in relationships there is actually absolutely nothing wrong with us if we are not in a relationship with a partner. Up until this moment I have always felt that being single was completely abnormal and not the way I was designed to be… Now I can feel that is simply the way things are and there is no right or wrong way to be. If there was as much focus on the true fairy tale where we fall in love with ourselves as there is on the ‘Disney princess’ with her prince charming the world would be a very different place.

My question would be, did we need to be in a relationship growing up? I would say the answer is no, as we are so content at being and playing with ourselves when we are growing up, that it doesn’t even cross our minds whether there are friends there to play with or not. So what is it that has changed since then? What is it that makes us think we need to be with someone? A lack of self worth , a feeling of not being good enough?

That’s a good question Gyl. I always needed being involved in a relationship because my lack of self worth, and when the “magic moment” finished I felt quiet sad, frustrated and empty. Then I just wanted to go away and I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I wondered “If this is the man of my dreams…why I’m feeling like that?”

Now, I’m single and learning everyday to love myself first because is just then when I can truly love to everyone. I’ve realized that this emotion of needines of someone who love me is not true love. When I attended the courses of Universal Medicine I truly started a deep and a loving relationship with myself. This allowed me to appreciate me more and more and I could let go all the beliefs about myself and all the pictures that I had of me and men.

I’m not single in truth. I’m in love with myself. I’m still learning to be in this new way but I can say that I can feel complete as I’ve never felt before and so inspired to keep on knowing the amazing woman that I am.

It is crazy how we think we have to be in a relationship to be seen as successful in the world we live in, yet to actually know ourselves and have a relationship with ourselves is far more fulfilling. If we all learnt to understand and know ourselves first, all our relationships would be on a more equal and honest foundation.

You’re right. Everything is totally set up for girls to believe they are incomplete, insufficient and unworthy without the arm of a man to accompany them through grown-up life. Thus the quest for Prince Charming is established, putting extreme pressure on potential suitors to match the ideal, just as in the fairytales. The whole thing is pure illusion and simply keeps both men and women from appreciating and accepting their own natural quality, their individual essence and – most importantly – the true power they have that is available to them and to others once it’s acknowledged and embraced.

I have been single for most of my adult life, I carried a lot of protection and a lack of self worth, thinking I was not good enough for any man. I created a body that reflected this too. Over the last few years I have been working on loving myself more and can now feel much more confident of myself. It was these changes that supported me to start to date as I could feel I wanted to share my life with another. I have been dating someone for 4 months and ended the relationship yesterday. While the man I was dating was gorgeous I realised that there was still a lack of true love as the foundation in the relationship and I realised he was resisting allowing the relationship to go deeper, I wanted more than this and so shared this with him. It made me realise how much has changed that previously I didn’t think I was worthy of a relationship to now recognising that there is a level of love that I won’t accept less than this. Whether I am single or not I want love in my life and relationships and we are all worthy of this.

Recently someone asked me “Do you have a partner?”. Quickly I found myself justifying my single state telling “No I don’t have a partner but maybe some day I would like to…” I felt so insecure. What I’ve realized is that I didn’t believe at all that I’m more than enough being single. It’s huge the impact of mass media, magazines and films that we received since our early childhood and how this affects and condition our way to see to ourselves as a women in the society. It seems like we are incomplete being single when this is not true. I don’t have any reason to justify myself to fit in the ideals and images that society imposes. We are all already perfect and amazing human beings.

This is so true: “Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not.”
Sadly, we are distracted from the beauty that lies within us all – we are distracted into seeking a pot of Gold that lies outside of ourselves, and so we fall for this hook line and sinker. But all the time, the love that we are resides within us, like embers of a fire that never dies out, waiting for that day for us to realise that it is there, to feed the fire, allow it to grow and then to share it with everyone else too.

One of the deepest and most destroying thoughts a person can have, is to think that there is something wrong with them. In whatever guise this may take, with whichever words. The central intent to do harm is in the thought that you are broken. You are never truly broken. You may experience things that you wish you hadn’t. You may make choices you wish you had not. But the core of who you are is never touched by these events. And in that case you are always essentially a beautiful man or a beautiful woman, fully and completely.

Awesome Gyl and very true, I took my daughter to see a Disney movie yesterday and I was only considering how harming the messages of life is boring until a man comes along and saves you scenario is being reinforced in movies, book and tv constantly. It would be so much more empowering and supportive for children of all ages to have more real role models about being yourself and connecting to the love that is within and appreciating all the beautiful and amazing qualities you bring – learning this from a young age there would not be self esteem issues or the need to find another person to complete them.

After a while of being single I had recently ventured into having a relationship and all the pictures I had of what it would now be like where just not true. I really got to learn that if I don’t have a solid foundation of loving myself then I will not have the quality of relationship with another that I would like to have- that it really does start with me.

The fact is that most relationships hide a plethora of lack of self worth and an unsteadiness in ourselves, as we essentially prop each other up and give each other what we need to get by. If being single is an opportunity to break these patterns and be able to stand on our own two feet, love ourselves deeply and be able to offer another person true love – what could be bad about that?

The pressure in society to measure ourselves and our worth by the relationships that we are in, or not, impacts us and the relationships we develop hugely. We seek, pressure and impose on others to fullfill a need that only can come from developing a loving relationship with ourselves. We are not encouraged to explore the relationship with ourselves, with the power of Love within us that has no need to prove a thing as it is already everything. The truth of all that we are is found within, were the Love we are awaits to be embraced, claimed, lived and celebrated with all.

This is a common belief of women, ‘why did I feel I was not enough? I realised what a huge impact these thoughts had played out in my life, and that they stemmed from a lack of self-worth.’ And it is not even true, we can cap ourselves with beliefs that are false, time to let these go.

We absorb so many harmful beliefs as we grow up with what is expected of us as the ‘norm’ but there is real beauty and power when you claim “accepting the powerful and amazing woman I am – and to live this – whether I am with someone or not?”

It occurs to me now, in reading this blog, how the word ‘single’ really singles you out, makes a person separate – as if you are not a part of the greater movements that society are going through. This seems terribly unfair because the level of commitment to yourself that you have to give to not be in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is huge and we can all learn from having these people in our lives who are not willing to compromise.

Great blog Gyl – it certainly renders nought those crazy ideals and programs that we have allowed to get ingrained in us.
From the age of 17 to the age of 60 I was always in a relationship with a man – got married three times, and I have to say I hugely enjoyed those relationships and being in relationship with men (even despite the bad parts!) But at the age of 60 I saw that i did not want to live out my years with someone, a very lovely man, who drank alcohol. I made my choice and I am now single and 68. I have found these years single to be very productive and enjoyable, and yet i think if a beautiful man came along I would say yes to being with him. Whether married or single, I feel that what matters most is the quality in which one lives life – and not the fact that one is single or married.

We are love whether we are single or with a partner, how much of this love that we know and feel are we expressing? If there is no holding back of this love, would it matter whether we are single or not? When we are full, is there room for ideals or beliefs? I have realised for myself that being single just like having a partner can become an ideal and in that there is no love.

A while back I went to a reunion and felt and looked amazing. As I talked with people I hadn’t seen for a few years I was asked ” Do you have a boyfriend” – as if this was the reason I felt so great. The thought that I could look and feel so amazing because I had learned to love myself hadn’t crossed their minds. Being single for me now has been a huge learning, as when newly single I realised how needy I was when in relationship, and how I constantly gave my power away. We get what we need.

“Everything is being set up for girls to grow up into women to feel incomplete without a partner. All these stories dull down the truth and power of what it is to be a woman, whether we are in an intimate relationship or not.” Absolutely, and of course intimacy can be with anyone at anytime, as a quality of connection single or otherwise. Sadly there are married people who have far less true intimacy in their lives than some totally single people, and that is what matters, quality in all our relationships.

This blog is such good medicine! I remember being with partners and being seen out, in town at the shops or to dinner I always felt better about myself when seen with a guy. It was a feeling of accomplishment, that I’d made it and got one and could end the search while the rest were still looking. Crazy. So when I’m feeling this, I drop the relationship with myself and am pretty much saying that I’m not enough as I am – that a guy on my arm pumps up my worth. Great to reflect on this as life is very different now and I am embracing being single!

Accepting a less than fully loving relationship for the sake of security is a massive topic in life for both men and women. A topic that touches on the need for us all to explore what a fully loving relationship actually is. An exploration that asks us to consider the true meaning of the word love.

Great to read this again today because most of the time I feel absolutely fine about being single but I heard myself yesterday saying how I would like to have a partner and it’s interesting to explore why that would be so and what it is that I am not doing to provide myself with all the care, love and support that I need.

I was at an event recently – and felt and looked amazing It was interesting to observe that a friend, who I hadn’t seen for over three years, complimented me on how well I looked – then asked if I had a bloke! Why is it that society assumes when you look well and vibrant there must be a love partner? Instead I share that I am loving me – more and more! Thanks to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.

“At the time these comments made me smile, as I was able to see where they were coming from … beliefs and ideals we grow up with and then believe to be our own. Though in all honesty, I realised for most of my life I had chosen to believe that there was something wrong with me when I was single.” This was true for me too Gyl. When I was ‘in between boyfriends’ I felt there was something wrong with me, After my husband and i separated i went searching for a partner – in order to make myself feel better and worthy of someone. Eventually I woke up to the fact I needed to love myself first and stopped the desperate searching for someone out there. Since coming to Universal Medicine my life has changed exponentially. I am content being me and with me – and with life

I wonder if deep down inside we do all actually know that there is no ‘perfect person’ for anyone, we are all just simply flawed in some way or another due to the fact that we are human. And I wonder if it is perhaps one of our greatest strengths – that despite all the imperfections, we are still able to love each other unconditionally and in full acceptance of who we all are. And I wonder if this is what is being targeted in the media, to sow the seeds of doubt so that we override these innate feelings of love and instead seek the perfection that is impossible to achieve.

We certainly do forgo living our power when we allow the measure of our worth to be defined by whether we are in a relationship or not, being loved by another. We already are love in essence, and it’s our love that defines all that we are, and so it makes sense to explore, embrace and stand in the glory of who we are first, be it single or not, before we choose to share our majesty with others. As then we then bring the opportunity to truly connect with another in true power where evolution is ignited.